Enjoyed rooftop cocktails during sunset followed by an epically beautiful and delicious dinner.

I have been waiting patiently for Hotel Per La to open! I always walk by it on the way to the dentist which has been often since I started Invisalign. It’s a high-end boutique hotel in downtown Los Angeles that just recently opened with a cafe, restaurant, and rooftop!

Richard and I started with drinks at Bar Clara on the roof during the most beautiful sunset we’ve seen in a long time (thank you LA pollution?). I would suggest getting to the roof an hour to an hour and a half before sunset to truly enjoy it. They also have a pool that is open to the public after 5pm. You will probably catch me here when the warm summer nights return.

After drinks, we headed downstairs to the restaurant Per L’Ora. It’s beautiful with lots of seating and a bar. It was hard to order because everything sounded so good. Pretty much anything with bread was amazing. I love the cheddar twist that was waiting for us on the table. The toasts are really good although I felt like the bread was very hard but the focaccia was heavenly! I liked the sauce that it came with too. It was hard to stop eating it so we could leave room for the rest of the meal.

The appetizers were mind-blowing! We got tuna carpaccio and crab cake. The crab cake is exactly what all crab cakes should be… full of real crab! It was so big and I loved the roe on top. The tuna carpaccio was probably my favorite part of the meal. It was way bigger than I thought and it had uni! There were thin slices of crispy potato on top and I have not stopped thinking about it since.

For the main entrees, we got squid ink pasta and veal. I thought the pasta was okay, but I loved the veal! It was deep-fried and came with this herbaceous parsley salad. I may have liked the parsley salad more, but the dish altogether was delectable.

The dessert was pretty good too! We got the honey tart and mango semifreddo. The honey tart was very nutty and heavy. It was yummy, but I felt like I would rather have it in the morning with a cup of coffee. I’m not sure what a semifreddo is, but it was pretty much a fancy mango frozen dessert with a Tajin glass!

And to end our perfect date at Hotel Per La, we checked out the bathrooms that were in huge vaults since the building used to be the Bank of Italy! Maybe one of these days we’ll have a staycation.