The Brief

Of all the classic cocktails, the Negroni might be the best. Boozy, straightforward, and smooth, it’s perfect to drink year-round. Made with just three stirred ingredients — equal parts gin, sweet red vermouth, and Campari — it’s easy to put together and fun to play with when you’re looking to experiment with a variation.

And the act of making a Negroni is nothing short of a comforting ritual, akin to brewing that first cup of coffee in the morning and much more satisfying than simply pouring a bottle of rosé after a long day.

Getting the Negroni just right — using enough ice, stirring long enough but not too long, perfecting coldness and dilution, twisting a perfect bit of orange peel — might seem simple enough, but requires a bit of practice to perfect. And luckily, the practice is part of the fun.

A good Negroni is neither overly bitter nor sweet, and the mark of a really well-made version is its texture. Avoid something overly diluted and watery and look out for a really smooth mouthfeel. Some will stick to the standard 1:1:1 ratio, while others, like acclaimed New York bar Death & Co., will encourage the use of slightly more gin. Some will stick to gin, while others will play with mezcal or even add espresso, teas, chocolate, or bitters.

But for when you’re tired of making drinks at home or simply want a cocktail on a rooftop with friends, there are plenty of spots in Los Angeles to try the classic Negroni or a variation thereof. And in a city with no shortage of stellar cocktail bars, it’s worth remembering not to overlook this beloved drink.

I almost view it as a litmus test; if a bar can make a good Negroni, it shows their bartenders understand technique, dilution, and balance. And if the variation is comparable to the original, that’s all the more impressive.

Here are some of my favorite Negronis around town.

Grandmaster Recorders (Hollywood)

Negronis at Grandmaster Recorders in Hollywood

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Courtesy Grandmasters Recorders

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Grandmaster Recorders doesn’t miss, and while there are plenty of delicious wines and cocktails to try at either the restaurant, studio space, or rooftop bar, the Negronis are especially worth trying.

What’s special about the Negronis here is that each floor serves a different variation; grab a bianco Negroni on tap at the restaurant, a caffe Negroni at the recording studio-turned-bar space called Studio 71, and finish with a post-dinner classic at the rooftop overlooking Hollywood.

Baar Baar (DTLA)

The Anarkali, named after the 1953 Bollywood movie

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Neil John Burger Photography

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Courtesy Baar Baar

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Baar Baar’s cocktail menu is solid; no matter what drink you order, you really can’t miss at this Downtown L.A. restaurant. But the Anarkali might be the best they have to offer. Named after the 1953 Bollywood movie, this Negroni variation features Darjeeling tea and cardamom along with all the standard ingredients. It’s smooth, sweet, and slightly tannic. Be forewarned though that the caffeine might make it harder to sleep, especially when you order more than one.

Terra in Eataly (Century City)

Ordering a Negroni and some antipasti at Terra is as close to an Italian aperitivo as you can get without leaving county lines. The classic Negroni is made to perfection — no notes. Order the Negroni A Mood Mio if you want a twist that swaps out vermouth for Amaro Meletti and adds grapefruit bitters, and enjoy the rooftop views. You’ll almost forget you’re at the Century City Mall.

Dante (Beverly Hills)

Dante offers a whole page of Negroni variations on its cocktail meny

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Giada Paoloni

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Courtesy Dante

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Order a Negroni — or seven — at Dante in Beverly Hills, where the extensive cocktail menu dedicates a whole page to this Italian favorite. There are variations made with tequila, mezcal, or rum; featuring chocolate or coffee; and even a mini version developed with Italian restaurateur Massimo Bottura. And of course, there’s the traditional version too. Any drink will go with one of the best views in Beverly Hills.

Capri Club (Eagle Rock)

This Eagle Rock aperitivo bar is a great place to get a no-fuss Negroni, made with either gin or mezcal. For those looking for a spin, there’s also a white Negroni crafted with a house white aperitivo blend and bianco vermouth, or a tobacco Negroni made with mezcal, bitter noveis, Carpano Antica, and tobacco and cherry bitters.

Those avoiding alcohol can also order a Phony Negroni. Come early to snag a red booth, or enjoy your drink at the packed bar or outdoor tables.

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

For Los Angeles streetlight advocates, 2025 was another dark year, as calls to repair public lights remained nearly the same as the year before despite growing public and political scrutiny.

Malfunctioning streetlights are nothing new to Angelenos. For years, they have plagued neighborhoods and left residents to deal with darkened sidewalks, streets and parks — and the public safety challenges they pose.

An analysis by The LA Local of 311 calls for streetlight repairs showed that reports remained consistently high in 2025, with about 45,500 compared with 46,100 in 2024. That was an increase of roughly 10,000 calls from 2022 and 2023, when totals hovered around 35,000.

Downtown remained the neighborhood with the most streetlight calls: about 2,400 in 2025, an increase of about 200 from the year before.

While the total number remained relatively constant citywide, the locations of calls shifted. Some neighborhoods saw drops, while others saw surges – notably in some of LA’s higher-income neighborhoods.

Calls in Hollywood Hills tripled from about 300 to more than 1,000 in 2025. Silverlake calls similarly skyrocketed from 513 in 2024 to about 1,482 last year. Calls in Atwater Village and Los Feliz more than doubled.

Boyle Heights, once among the most affected neighborhoods, saw progress. The neighborhood had more than 1,900 calls for light repair in 2024 and about 1,100 in 2025.

Westlake saw a similar decrease, from 1,864 calls in 2024 to 1,042 in 2025. Calls in Pico Union and West Adams were cut in half.

According to the Los Angeles City Controller’s office, the LA Bureau of Street Lighting reported that copper wire theft has been trending down since last summer. Reported maintenance calls, however, doubled from about 2,000 in July 2025 to about 4,400 in January 2026.

The LA Bureau of Street Lighting, responsible for repairs and maintenance of the city’s 220,000 streetlights, saw a 5% budget cut in 2025. Its budget had long been among the smallest of public works departments.

Miguel Sangalang, the bureau’s director, told the City Council on March 4 that the department had a backlog of about 32,000 open service requests and that the average time to repair a light has grown to about a year. About a quarter of all installed lights were at the end stage of life, he said, and needed to be replaced.

“Theft and vandalism is our most glaring issue,” he told the city council. “This is the issue that takes out whole blocks and neighborhoods.”

The LA Local reported that the Los Angeles Police Department had disbanded a specialized unit — The Heavy Metal Task Force — investigating copper wire theft last July.

Sangalang said during the presentation that the department began fortifying streetlights, installing cages or shields to make the copper wiring more difficult to access. Installing battery- and solar-powered streetlights has helped, he added, because they use far less wire.

He noted that lights in areas that previously needed replacing multiple times per year had been replaced with solar-powered models and had remained intact for three years.

The bureau is expected to seek a tax increase to subsidize its budget, reduce the time it takes to repair lights and get back on track with its maintenance schedule.

Voyager Technologies unveiled a 140,000-square-foot facility Tuesday in Long Beach that will be used for designing and producing parts for missiles and commercial spacecraft.

The company wrote in a news release that the facility, which will employ 150 to 200 people, will be used to advance a number of the company’s ventures into aerospace and defense for the U.S. military and other clients.

“We are standing up capacity at Space Beach for one purpose: to deliver for our customers,” Matt Magaña, president of Space, Defense and National Security at Voyager, wrote — using a nickname for Long Beach’s burgeoning space industry.

The Denver-based company, which launched in 2019, has nearly a dozen locations across Ohio, California, Colorado and Texas. This announcement comes two months after it opened a 150,000-square-foot facility in Pueblo, Colo., also focused on missiles, defence and weaponry.

Through a network of former companies it has purchased, Voyager has researched and designed a variety of parts for spacecraft or rockets, from long-range radios and GPS guidance systems to commercial airlocks and propulsion systems.

It’s known for its Starlab project, a venture propelled by a $217 million NASA contract to replace the International Space Station, which is slated to retire in 2030.

But a majority of the company’s business is in defense. The net sales last year for its defense and national security program jumped 59%, making up $123 million of the $166 million it made. In the last quarter of 2025, the category made up nearly two-thirds of its sales.

By contrast, the company’s sales for “Space Solutions,” which designs spacecraft for commercial and research purposes, declined by 36% in 2025.

The company is working with Lockheed Martin to develop a new missile interceptor system — coined the “Next Generation Interceptor” — and has contracts to build parts for hypersonic missiles and military-grade payloads. Top officials at Voyager say they have a strong interest in competing for contracts on Golden Dome, a 10-year, $151 billion missile defense program.

It’s unclear whether the Long Beach facility will focus on a particular program or take on work as it is needed. In a release, company officials wrote it will help design A.I. software and other parts for “next-generation propulsion and defense systems and integrated sensing, communications and autonomy technologies.”

The company said it is working with neighbors Anduril Industries and True Anomaly, who recently set up facilities in Long Beach, to meet some contracts, but did not specify the venture.

It’s the latest in a wave of space tech companies to join “Space Beach” by moving to the 430-odd acres of industrial and warehouse space once used to build cargo planes outside Long Beach Airport.

In January, Anduril, an artificial-intelligence-backed weapons manufacturer, announced that it was building a $1 billion campus nearby to make drones and other A.I.-enabled weapons.

It’s an industry where successful businesses often curry favor with the federal government and military, and local representatives are eager to attract defense tech firms to create high-paying jobs.

Mayor Rex Richardson, left, and Matt Magaña, president of Space, Defense and National Security at Voyager. Photo Courtesy Voyager Technologies “We’re proud to welcome Voyager to our growing Space Beach ecosystem with a 140,000-square-foot facility advancing aerospace innovation, domestic manufacturing, and national security capabilities,” said Mayor Rex Richardson. “This investment brings high-skilled jobs, strengthens our local economy, and further establishes Long Beach as a national hub for the industries shaping our future.”

These companies are in tight competition to take advantage of a growing national defense budget — $895 million in 2025 from $816 in 2023 — while taking advantage of the large pools of talent near existing research and military facilities like JPL in Pasadena, Mojave Air and Space port in Kern County and Vandenberg Space Force Base.

While the budget was shrunk to $838.7 billion in 2026, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has placed an increased priority on spending on U.S.-made drones and autonomous weapon systems. Buoyed by global conflicts, defense companies in Long Beach and across the region are anxious to accelerate their designs and production of weapons and defense systems.

The story first appeared on Boyle Heights Beat.

A free community food pantry that had been set up outside a market in East Los Angeles now has a new home in Boyle Heights, thanks to community members who rallied to keep it going.

Created by East L.A. native Rebecca Gonzales, the pantry had been stationed outside of Ramirez Meat Market on the corner of Folsom Street and Rowan Avenue since November, offering produce, snacks and shelf-stable items.

Gonzales created the resource after seeing how ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and SNAP delays were affecting the most vulnerable in her community. 

A few days after Boyle Heights Beat published an article about the pantry, the market’s owner asked Gonzales to move it.

Rosa Ramirez, who has owned Ramirez Meat Market for 26 years, said she hadn’t expected the pantry to be permanent and noticed that fewer people were coming into her store when the pantry was stocked. Ramirez appreciated Gonzales’ intentions, but said the piles of donated clothes and shoes next to the pantry were difficult to manage.

Soon after learning the pantry would have to move, Gonzales posted the news on Instagram. Within an hour, she received about a dozen messages from friends and community members reaching out to help. 

“I was worried that I was gonna have to just bring it home and it’s gonna be a lapse of services,” Gonzales said. 

That same day, Yvonne I. Monje Perez, owner of SuperNova Thrift — a shop near Mariachi Plaza that sells second-hand clothing — reached out. Though she had never met Gonzales, Perez didn’t think twice about offering help. 

The East LA free food pantry now sits outside of SuperNova Thrift on 1st Street in Boyle Heights.

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Laura Anaya-Morga

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Boyle Heights Beat

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“We could benefit from something like that here in this neighborhood,” Perez recalled thinking after seeing the post. 

With coordination from Gonzales and guidance from the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, Perez and her husband picked up the pantry last Friday and it was open for the community the following day. 

“It makes me so happy seeing people come to it and look at it, and just take from it,” said Perez. “It’s been received very well, a lot of people are very happy about it.”

Now, Perez and Gonzales have a schedule for opening and closing the pantry, and donations have continued to roll in. 

While Gonzales does not keep track of how many donations come in every day, she noticed items usually remain at the end of the day, a change from when the pantry would go empty in East L.A.  

Looking ahead, Gonzales hopes to inspire others to start free food pantries in their own communities.

“People want to help,” she said. “People want to do good things. People want to see other people not just survive, but thrive.”

The East LA free food pantry was recently moved in front of SuperNova Thrift on 1st Street in Boyle Heights.

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Laura Anaya-Morga

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Boyle Heights Beat

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