Most people who have lived in Los Angeles for a year have heard the two words. It is a small part of the city and it has been getting a great deal of attention — not only in who lives there but in what is on the street. Cafés, boutiques, music venues, galleries, record shops, places to eat. The list keeps going.
Unlike Silver Lake next door, Echo Park still has an edge. People associate the area with danger because of its past, and that history is not entirely erased. But it is genuinely not dangerous. It simply looks more urban than Silver Lake does, and the tension of a neighbourhood mid-change is exactly what makes it interesting to walk through.
The lake reopened this year after three years of renovation. What used to be dark and gritty is now green, serene and full of lotus flowers, with families picnicking on the grass and a restaurant of its own in Square One.
Sunset, end to end
Sunset Boulevard is the artery. Almost everything is on it or a few steps off it, which makes this a morning you can do entirely on foot with a cup in your hand.
Origami Vinyl has just turned three, which tells you something about how much appetite for records has arrived with the new residents.
The coffee shops keep appearing and each has found its own reason to exist. Hedgehog runs a long list of vegan options and sits, with some comic timing, across from the PETA headquarters. Taza is a small takeout place showing artists on the walls. Lot 1 Cafe puts on music every week, mostly local and mostly upcoming. And Tierra Mia, which is expanding across Los Angeles, has committed entirely to Latin American beans — a narrower shelf than most, and better for it.
When the coffee runs out, Sunset Beer Companyis the neighbourhood’s real gem, with a range of craft and imported beer that is out of all proportion to the size of the room. Mohawk Bend has fifty-two taps and a menu that is nearly half vegan.
And Guisados, which deserves an entry of its own and may yet get one. The fillings are unlike anybody else’s and the queue is deserved.
Go on a Saturday. Start at the lake, walk Sunset, and let the day decide the rest.
A note from 2026: this was written in the autumn of 2014 and we have left it as it was. A decade is a long time in a neighbourhood changing that fast, and some of the places above have certainly closed. The lake is still there.
