WEST ADAMS

Urban cool

“People are calling West Adams the new Silver Lake but we’re adamant that we don’t want to change the feel of this area,” says Sophie Woodard from the 48-room desert-cool Alsace LA hotel (hotel.qantas.com.au/alsacela), one of the businesses giving this South LA district, famous for its jazz, 19th-century architecture and Black and Latino cultures, a new edge.

There are plenty of great dining experiences to dive into: eating the house-made cornbread with honey butter underneath the star jasmine trellis at soul food mecca Alta (altaadams.com) is one, as is the “size of your head” grilled cheese sandwich at Tartine (tartinebakery.com) or the tongue-numbing Szechuan noodles at Mian (miantaste.com). But Woodard says you can’t visit the area without trying the food that’s been here for decades, like the Salvadoran pupusas – a sort of grilled flat bread – from Es Con

Sabor (5239 W Adams Boulevard; +1 323 939 1458) or what she considers to be the best late-night tacos in the city, from the guy who sets up his truck every day at about 4pm on the corner of W Adams and Alsace. “He blasts his Mexican music into the night but no-one cares, it’s all part of the atmosphere.”

But it’s not all about the food. Art and artisans have carved out space here, from handmade jewellery at Antiqua (antiquajewelry. com) and the curated Fair Trade homewares of The Global Trunk (theglobaltrunk.com) to the Band of Vices gallery (bandofvices. com), which showcases art from marginalised and overlooked creative communities.

And once your senses have been tweaked and twanged and stretched to their limits, hop on one of the bikes that are available for guests at the Alsace and cycle to the Peace Awareness Labyrinth

& Gardens (peacelabyrinth.org), an unexpected patch of tranquillity in one of the world’s most hectic metropolises.