What to Order at Vandell, the Los Feliz Bar, Under $20

The Hillhurst Avenue bar from two Republique veterans pours cocktails from $9, and the smoked tomato is the one to get.

A cocktail at Vandell, the Los Feliz bar on Hillhurst Avenue, starts at $9 and tops out at $17. That range sits at the bottom of restaurant critic Bill Addison's review for the Los Angeles Times, which calls it the hottest bar in the city in 2026. Snacks are $4 to $9, small plates $9 to $20, entrees $22 to $36.

So two drinks at the top of the list is $34 before tax and tip, and you may well drink them standing, packed four deep at the soapstone counter, after time on the sidewalk. Lines have formed there nightly since the bar opened in early December, the Times reported.

Here's my read on the facts Addison gathered: the cocktails aren't the interesting bet. The theme is.

Vandell is named for Vandell Griffith, the longtime curator of Griffith Park who died in 1977 and whose father donated the land. Pasadena Craftsman Tile built a fçade echoing the tilework of 1935, the year Griffith Observatory opened. Artist Molly Bounds painted the park above the bar in sepia, with a Looney Tunes sign-off aimed at Hollywood. There's a John Wayne portrait and a lamp sconce shaped like Mickey Mouse's hand, both pointed at the Tam O'Shanter on Los Feliz Boulevard.

That is a lot of iconography for one small room, and the risk is obvious: one more wink and you've got a theme restaurant with a good gin list. I read the Mickey hand as exactly that until I noticed what the citations are keyed to — a specific block, a specific 1935, a specific 104-year-old steakhouse eight minutes' walk away. Compare Donna's, the Echo Park red-sauce homage from the same partners at Park Hospitality: that group can build a room around an idea and not smother the bar underneath it. Compare, too, the agave-focused Miraté and Daisy, which organize a program around one category. Vandell organizes around a place instead, which is harder and travels worse.

The partners are Shawn Lickliter, a vintage-spirits specialist who ran the beverage programs at République, Manzke and Bicyclette, and Vay Su, a competition winner known for building drinks around a single fruit or vegetable. They met at République and opened with Michael Francesconi and Matthew Glaser of Park Hospitality.

The Times prints ranges rather than a price for each drink, so budget by band. Under $20, the order is Su's smoked tomato with mezcal, basil, ginger, chile and lime leaf salt — Addison writes that "if you try only the herbaceous smoked-tomato mezcal cocktail he spearheaded, I'll have done my job" — plus the Green Pepper, built on green Chartreuse and tequila blanco, and a $12 shot of carrot eau de vie that takes close to 80 pounds of produce per liter. The mini house martini is tinged with tarragon vinegar. Anchovy toast is on the recommended list.

The strongest case against going: if you're not drinking, there isn't much here yet. Addison names zero-proof as the bar's growth edge, with one melon soda riff hinting at what's possible. In 2026 that's a real hole, and the room's whole argument is the liquid. I'd concede it and go anyway, for the tile.

Don't expect the kitchen to carry the night either. "The food is generally enjoyable, but don't expect culinary fireworks as the main event," Addison writes.

Vandell is at 1966 Hillhurst Ave. and is open daily from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., street parking only. Addison found the crowd thinner around 6 p.m. on Sundays. That's the hour I'd take.

Source: latimes.com, retrieved September 5, 2026.