Where To Celebrate The Holidays In Los Angeles This Year

The holidays mean love, actually — the musical, that is. L’Ermitage Beverly Hills has partnered with Love Actually Live, currently at the Wallis, for an unforgettable evening. Dine at Avec Nous, the hotel’s signature restaurant, for a festive British holiday menu with a California twist that includes turkey with the trimmings, Yorkshire pudding and more in a room decorated with festive holiday lights and hearts (because duh, it’s love, actually) courtesy of Emmy Award-winning set designer Matthew Steinbrenner. Continue on to the Wallis to the catch the interactive live musical and make sure to make like Andrew Lincoln, hold up a sign, and take your own photos to remember. To me, you perfect indeed. 

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Baker Photo

The Beverly Hills Hotel 

Photo Credit: Audrey Ma

The iconic Pink Palace is even more fabulous than usual this holiday season thanks to specialty cocktails and welcoming carolers,  whimsical children’s activities and a pink flamingo-dotted Christmas tree. The hotel is offering culinary options for those who’d prefer not to cook, from Christmas Eve dinner to a Christmas Day brunch with a massive dessert buffet (our favorite) and live music. There’s also seasonal cocktails on offer, including favorites like spiced mulled wine, spiked egg nog (the best kind!) and a fig sidecar. Then, leading up to Christmas, the Polo Lounge has reinvented its signature dinner dessert to best celebrate the sweetness of the season. Included among the 12 festive seasonal preparations of this classic favorite are pumpkin pie, holiday sugar cookie, peppermint chocolate chip, eggnog and gingerbread. There’s also a children’s cookie decorating class and holiday carolers a-plenty. So where are the 12 flamingos a-standing? Oops. That would be by the tree.

Photo Credit: Audrey Ma

Hotel Bel-Air

Photo Credit: Audrey Ma

The Dorchester Collection’s other L.A. property, Hotel Bel-Air, is serving up some sensational treats this holiday season. On Christmas Eve, Wolfgang Puck at Hotel Bel-Air is offering a three-course prix-fixe menu including its spectacular beignet Christmas tree from 5 pm to 8:30 pm; a Christmas Day Brunch that includes a three-course prix-fixe menu with seasonal cocktail and dessert
buffet, from 11 am to 3:30 pm; and a four-course Christmas Day dinner from 5 pm to 9 pm. Meanwhile, guests can purchase homemade ‘Ding Dongs’ filled with marshmallow cream and both children and adults alike can take gingerbread decorating classes hosted by executive pastry chef Tiffany Pascua. Adults can decorate their houses while indulging in wine, cheese and eggnog, while the little ones can enjoy something a lot less, well, adult — hot cocoa and sandwiches.

Photo Credit: Hotel Bel-Air

Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel 

Photo Credit: Beverly Wilshire

Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons hotel, has some of the most glam holiday offerings in L.A. First up, there’s a festive ETRO holiday tea at THEBlvd Restaurant and Lounge crafted by the hotel’s new Executive Pastry Chef Riccardo Menicucci, presented on ETRO’s new “Boho Butterfly” collection, designed in collaboration with Italian iconic porcelain manufacturer Ginori 1735, launching this holiday season .In line with the theme, Menicucci will keep the desserts for the tea experience “very Italian” including a gluten-free traditional Italian biscuit originally from Siena; biscotti; pasticcini di mandorla, a Sicilian flourless, soft cookie; as well as Bignoline, a blood orange and dark chocolate cream puff. End the afternoon over at ETRO for a private VIP shopping experience.

Then, there is complimentary hot apple cider and holiday-inspired cookies daily in the main lobby from 4:00 to 5:00 pm and on Dec. 18, the local Beverly Hills High School choir will return to perform carols while the hotel welcomes Santa Claus from 4:30 to 5:30 pm for a meet and greet, as well as photo opportunity. Afterwards, visit THEBlvd to try another featured holiday cocktail, The Wise King, made with tequila, peppermint schnapps and house-made hot chocolate.

Celebrate Hanukkah every night in the Hotel’s main lobby from November 28 through December 6, 2021 with a menorah lighting with local Rabbi Dovid Begun from Chabad of Southwest Beverly Hills. The first and last evening will feature kosher cookies for one and all to enjoy. Enjoy Christmas Eve in THEBlvd with a special three-course prix fixe menu of chestnut soup, warm California goat cheese crottin fritter, or chicken liver mousse. For the main, choose from roasted Colorado lamb loin, ribeye cap and wasabi crusted petite filet or a pan seared wild striped bass. End dinner on a sweet note – choose the Chocolate Atlas or yuzu meringue pie. At CUT by Wolfgang Puck on Christmas Eve, indulge in a prix fixe menu complete with choice of a main course of dry aged 35-day rib eye, Gold Label Snake River Farm filet, bone-in New York, roasted duck breast, lou de mer or rotisserie poussin.  And on Christmas Day in THEBlvd, offerings include a three-course prix fixe menu of purple vichyssoise soup, seared sea scallops or warm California goat cheese crottin fritter for the first course. For the main course, choose from dukkah crusted Colorado lamb loin, ribeye cap and wasabi crusted petite filet or a pan seared wild striped bass. Compete this decadent meal with the choice of a salted caramel and milk chocolate semifreddo or a coconut panna cotta. Live music from 2:00 to 10:00 pm will make things merry and bright, while guests can choose to enhance the meal with a seafood platter, caviar, champagne or a grilled lobster tail.

Photo Credit: Beverly Wilshire

Loews Santa Monica Beach

Photo Credit: Loews Santa Monica

There’s a load of festivity happening by the beach at Loews Santa Monica Beach. Handcrafted holiday cocktails, when paired with holiday hipster carolers roaming the hotel singing acapella on Friday nights from 4pm – 6pm, are just the thing you need to get into the holiday spirit. On Saturdays, meet and greet with Santa and experience one of his magic tricks from 5pm-6:30pm. Stay a little longer from 6pm -8pm and enjoy live music featuring all of the classics. There’s also seaside cinema — with appropriately festive treats — letter writing to Santa and more on Fridays and Saturdays from 6-8 pm. 

Photo Credit: Loews Santa Monica

Pendry West Hollywood

Photo Credit: Pendry West Hollywood

You still have today to sign up for cookie decorating and cocktail making with Merois General Manager Byron Lazaroff-Puck and Executive Pastry Chef François Behuet at West Hollywood’s haute new hotel, Pendry West Hollywood.

Photo Credit: Pendry West Hollywood

Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows

Through December 24, Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows will continue its annual ‘Meet Me Under The Fig Tree’ event with a charitable twist in partnership with local Santa MonicaCARES, benefiting the Westside Food Bank which provides nutritious food for local families in need, and Chrysalis, which provides employment opportunities and supportive services for those who face barriers to the workforce. The landmark 150-year-old 80-ft. Moreton Bay fig tree, adorned with festive holiday lights, will feature oversized gift boxes available for locals and travelers from afar to donate canned or non-perishable food items and clothing (new or gently worn), and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate, available for pick-up daily from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. throughout the month of December. Children can also mail letters to Santa in the spirit of Christmas. This beachside hotel will also offer a festive Christmas feast at farm-to-table eatery FIG on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day from 5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.  

Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills 

Photo Credit: Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills

Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, one of the most centrally located hotels in L.A., is celebrating the season with events that give back all month long. On Saturday, December 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the hotel is once again partnering with Wagmor Pets Dog Rescue for an open-to-the-public “Meet Santa” event, where your pup can have his or her photo taken with Santa under a giant Christmas tree. There’s also hot apple cider with doggie treats, with 100% proceeds donated to Wagmor. Here, guests will also meet adoptable rescue dogs, or “Santa’s Helpers” and learn from founder and Celebrity Pet Psychic Melissa Bacelar about the behind the scenes of rescuing dogs.

Then, on Thursday, December 23 from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., the hotel is partnering with Cedars Sinai and the Beverly Center for a blood drive. All donors will be entered into a raffle for a grand prize including a one-night stay at Sofitel LA, a shopping spree at the Beverly Center, and more.

On the non-charitable but totally enjoyable front, partake in the holiday-inspired  libation “The Ski Lift” (vanilla vodka, coconut cream, simple syrup and lemon juice) at Riviera 31 and be transported to snow-capped slopes from a faraway winter wonderland. One without palm trees, that is.

Photo Credit: Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills

Shutters on the Beach 

Photo Credit: Shutters-on-the-Beach

Get cozy California style with the seasonal Romp on the Beach Cocktail, a variation of a holiday eggnog from Puebla, Mexico, or enjoy Christmas brunch and dinner at Shutters’ oceanfront restaurant 1 Pico, which will highlight holiday classics with a twist. There’s also a Christmas train in the Living Room for those who have a particular affinity for choo-choos.

Photo Credit: Shutters-on-the-Beach

Peninsula Beverly Hills 

Photo Credit: Peninsula Beverly Hills

The Peninsula Beverly Hills, a glorious hotel in the heart of Beverly Hills, is doing it all this holiday season. Its “Taste the Season” cocktail — which includes a candy cane martini, season’s punch, mulled wine, hot buttered rum and more — can’t be missed. Then, from December 17-24, 6pm to 7pm, live holiday carolers will be singing all the traditional classics on the front drive of the hotel which coincides nicely with the Santa Brunch at The Belvedere, where guests and locals alike will experience a festive-themed spin on the hotel eatery’s traditional brunch with a live holiday jazz band on site. A prix-fixe Christmas Eve menu (complete with free-flowing champagne) can’t be missed, nor can the Christmas celebration at the Belvedere. On Christmas Eve, families can join Santa for photographs and gifts to see who made the ‘Naughty or Nice’ list, and on Christmas Day itself, get ready for our favorite offering, a Christmas afternoon tea featuring festive seatings and holiday surprises. 

Photo Credit: Peninsula Beverly Hills

Ardor at West Hollywood Edition 

Photo Credit: d The West Hollywood EDITON

The West Hollywood Edition‘s signature restaurant, Ardor, will be offering a Christmas Eve dinner special that includes Hamachi with Orange Nuta, Wakame and Smoked Trout Roe; Roasted Duck with blood orange jam, crystallized ginger and shiso; candy apple
with an almond caramel, apple mousse, charcoal meringue and cider gastrique; and Mont-Blanc with a chestnut mousse, cassis gel and toasted hazelnuts. Best of all, if you don’t feel like dining amongst others, Xmas Eve dinner is available by room service, too.

The Beverly Hilton

Photo Credit: The Beverly Hilton

Take in the views of Beverly Hills and enjoy nearby shopping on Rodeo with a stay at the newly renovated The Beverly Hilton this holiday season. In addition to family friendly packages in partnership with Disney and spacious newly renovated suites, guests can enjoy Christmas brunch and Christmas dinner at signature poolside restaurant, CIRCA 55. Christmas dinner is available on December 25 from 3pm-5pm featuring seasonal soups and salads such as the Candy Cane Beet Salad with raw and roasted candy striped beets, a seafood display, carving station and more ($80 per person, $35 for children).