The latest in owner Craig Trager’s collection of beloved chic-but-chill watering holes (The Well, The Woods, NoBAR, The Fifth and the late, lamented Daddy’s) is bullish on its fusion of haute-Hollywood hipsterism and warm, low-lit Spanish-Mexican décor—think matador tapestries, naked-lady murals, last-century chandeliers and booth fabrics stitched Tijuana style— all nestled in an unlikely locale: a strip mall off the Cahuenga Pass.
“The thing I love most is that El Bar is the smallest of all my bars and the most intimate,” says Trager. “It’s also the only one of my bars that’s an actual extension of myself. If you came to my house, you’d totally get why. My house is a 1933 Spanish compound, and I always wanted to do something that was a reflection of what I personally loved.”
For three-plus decades the building housed The Casting Office before a brief stint as The Bridge—a failed attempt to bring velvet-rope elitism to the Valley. As for why Trager chose the location, he says, “it picked me.”
El Bar has already caught on with late-20s-and-older scenesters, musicindustry movers and shakers, the Mulholland gentry and such celebs as John Stamos, Andy Richter and Kiefer Sutherland.
El Bar prides itself on its custom sangrias and high-quality margaritas (always $3), a pizza and Mexican order-in menu created exclusively for its customers by neighboring 161 Street Pizzeria and an ample parking lot. And, of course, there’s the conversation piece mounted above the bar: a genuine bull’s head Trager scoured the globe to find and which stands watch over bodacious bartenders in bordello-red bustiers, creating a wholly unique vibe—let’s call it toreador torrid. 3256 Cahuenga Blvd. W., Los Angeles, 323-851-5111; vintagebargroup.com
