and the award for prettiest pastry case goes to:

Bottega Louie.

The intersection of 7th and Grand in downtown LA is not a Cali dreamscape. It is a melting pot of hurried fashion students / random LA business suits / cars circling for parking / people waiting for the bus / dogs barking / horns honking / people selling gold jewelry / people asking for money / film crews / exhaust…..exhausting. Gritty. Grimy. A little bit just gross.

But when you walk through the doors of Bottega Louie, you are greeted by a barricade of macarons, a flanking of pastry cases, tall ceilings. It’s big and bright and still loud, but I’ll take dishes clinking, martinis shaking, coffee fumes and loungy lunchtime chatter over a sticky urban concrete gutter mess any day. Respite from the outside world. At ease.

Now that you are safe and protected by glass and marble and sugar: What. To. Get??????

First thing to realize: it is impossible to choose just one thing. Save yourself a lot of unnecessary stress and don’t even try. This is the kind of place where grown adults have their faces pressed up against the glass like kiddies in an aquarium.

Second thing: they are known for their IG-ready macarons. So don’t bother debating if you should get multiple pastries OR a few macs instead. The word ‘instead’ is meaningless here. Just get everything. (not gonna lie, these are not my favorite macarons in the world or even in LA for that matter, but they are beautiful, and the boxes they’re packaged in are beautiful, and the earl grey version is beautiful and factually delicious, so just do it #YOLO)

Third thing: there are def a mix of tourists and locals here. Tourists bc it’s so pretty. Locals bc it’s also actually good, and has a well-balanced mix of palate pushing creations alongside ah-just-like-how-my-grand-mère-used-to-make-it desserts. Crazy tartes but classic éclairs too. And where besides the Central Perk circa 1995 does one order a cappuccino anymore? Here! It complements your tray of pastries perfectly and is equally as photogenic.

Plus, they’re open alllllll day long, like from 6:30am – 11pm, so you can reside at your safe marble table for a good, long time, but alas you cannot sleep here and so you’ll have to brave reality again at some point. Fingers crossed for a close parking spot.