Eve Babitz was L.A.’s ‘It’ girl. Here are 10 spots to flirt, eat and misbehave like she did

L.A. is a harmony of contradictions: It’s a bankrupt skyscraper covered in graffiti, a Mercedes-Benz G-class SUV with an expired registration, the quiet confusion of wondering whether a stranger’s outfit means they’re unhoused or just new to Silver Lake. L.A.’s refusal to make sense is what makes it irresistible, and no one understood that better than writer, artist and provocateur Eve Babitz, who died in 2021.

“Los Angeles isn’t a city. It’s a gigantic, sprawling, ongoing studio,” she wrote in her 1974 book “Eve’s Hollywood.” “Everything is off the record.”

Born in Hollywood in 1943 to a classical violinist father and an artist mother — and with Igor Stravinsky as her godfather — Babitz was destined for “It”-girl-ism. While people tend to flee their hometowns to start over in a new city, usually a place like L.A. or New York, Babitz knew she was exactly where she was meant to be. She tried New York once as a typist for Timothy Leary, because it’s where “real writers” lived and worked; she gave it one year before moving back to L.A.

Babitz understood L.A. better than anyone, including its seductions and secrets. Her legacy is being revisited in the Huntington’s exhibition “Los Angeles, Revisited,” which explores how L.A. has been shaped — and reshaped — by its visionaries. Babitz and her mother, Mae, a self-taught artist known for her preservation work on the Watts Towers and her sketches of L.A.’s vanishing buildings, have drawings included in the show. The exhibition runs through Dec. 1.

Consider what’s below your invitation to see L.A. as Babitz did — expansively, honestly and maybe a little recklessly. Just a heads-up, though: You won’t find a single coffee shop with a DMV-like line on this list.

Grand Central Market

This century-old market remains a local classic, with over 40 stalls and new spots elbowing in constantly. It spans an entire city block with two entrances on two streets at either end. “Unlike the Farmers Market [at 3rd and Fairfax], where tourists and Angelenos get cheerfully gypped daily, Central Market sells fresh produce and fresh fish and every kind of edible that could appeal to any faction of population minority that is in L.A.,” Babitz wrote in “Eve’s Hollywood.” Although it’s not as affordable as when Babitz shopped there — ’cause you know, the economy — it’s still a beloved spot to grab produce, Thai food (get the yellow chicken curry at Sticky Rice), ice cream, doughnuts, seafood, a PB&J — whatever your heart desires. That’s the whole point.

Discover all the other spots in L.A. in this article by by Jasmine Desiree for the LA Times.