LAGuide
Where Eva Longoria Celebrates, Sips Cocktails, & Makes Deals In LA
From her breakout role in Desperate Housewives to starring alongside Selena Gomez in the new season of Only Murders in the Building and everything in between, Eva Longoria is one of those Hollywood people who just gets things done. Beyond acting, she runs her own production and media company, and is also the co-founder of Casa Del Sol, a tequila company she launched three years ago.
Juggling all that means she’s out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner “four, five, six nights a week,” she says, taking meetings and fielding offers at a rotating roster of favorites. For Eva, choosing a restaurant is about comfort, repeatability, and “an experience you can't have at home," she says. Whether she's there making deals or celebrating them, these are the spots in LA you can find Eva Longoria on any given day.
THE SPOTS
"Steak 48 is amazing. I love a good steakhouse. There's a luxurious personal service that usually comes with a steakhouse. I feel like there's like a pride in steakhouses that you don't find in like more modern restaurants, so Steak 48 is a really good experience. I think when you go to a steakhouse, a good cocktail to order is a tequila old fashioned—it kind of sets the mood for the food that's about to come. I'm a meat eater, and I'm very picky about my cut of meat. Anybody who has a Japanese Wagyu or the ribeye—because I like a fatty, marbled steak—I'm sold. Steak 48 has the highest grade Japanese Wagyu. I think it's A5. It just melts in your mouth...cooked to perfection."
POWERED BY
"This is my Cheers. I go there five times a week. Everybody knows my name. I discovered Wally's because I'm a big wine drinker and they just have the best wine selection. It's an award-winning wine list and it's curated by these buyers who can curate your home wine cave, and so that's what we usually do. We're like, 'Hey, we're a little low on French burgundies,' and they'll curate what they know my taste is. They will know the price range I wanna stay in. I love that they're just such experts, and that obviously spills over to spirits and beer and gourmet food. It's also a little shopping center. I get my specialty cheeses there and my jamon Iberico. The charcuterie boards they make are to die for so I'm constantly ordering those for parties. They have really great cocktails, too, like their espresso martini with reposado—when you order an espresso martini in a bar, you should always ask for tequila, not vodka."
"I discovered it because it's owned by all these celebrity Spaniards who are my friends. I want to say it's Pau Gasol and Enrique Iglesias. That's why I originally went to go check it out. But it's beautiful. It has this legendary bar—it feels like America during Prohibition. It's just very avant-garde and really beautiful. And it has an amazing cocktail menu and the mixologists there are really talented. I love experimenting with cocktails from Tatel. They have the La Sicaria featuring our Reposado. Their risotto is to die for, and they also have croquetas and jamon. It's a fun, tapas kind of place. If you go with a big group, everybody can pick on everything. I like that kind of ambiance."
"Alma is one of the few places in LA that really celebrates authentic Mexican cuisine. The tacos are real tacos from Mexico. It's this two-story concept. On the ground floor, you have a walk-up taqueria and a marketplace that sells all these imported Mexican novelties. They do hand-pressed tortillas. And on the second floor, you can do super fine dining. They serve up more of a fusion, a Southern California twist on Mexican cuisine—kind of the equivalent of what Tex-Mex would be, but Californian. It's just such a fun, easy lunch. I have to go all the time just because they really do have the best tacos."
"There's one downtown and one in West Hollywood. It's a gourmet restaurant. It has macarons and stuff like that, and I don't wanna say this in a bad way, but it's super Instagrammable. It's like a patisserie. A lot of these places are also gourmet markets. I like when you can go and shop for specialty foods that you can't find at Ralph's or Whole Foods. And Bottega Louie has a really fun cocktail menu too. And they have this drink called La Passion on the drink menu, which has passion fruit—it's just so yummy and delicious. Sometimes you gotta wait for a table. It's that popular, especially the one downtown because it's near the Staples Center and it is a bit of a scene. If you want to be seen, go to Bottega Louie."
POWERED BY
"The Bungalow is fun and young. I go there and I feel alive. They have the best bar and the best bartenders. It's one of the most fun bars in LA. It's super retro in style and it's indoor-outdoor, so you can see the beach. If a tourist came to LA and went to The Bungalow, they would be like, 'Yeah, this is exactly what I imagined.' You get the beach, you get the surfers, you get the trendy people. If you're drinking, you have to order their Bungalow Margarita. Their mixologists and bartenders, they've been there for years. This is their profession. I love bartenders who take the art of drink-making very seriously."
photo credit: Wonho Frank Lee
"Fia is like a secret garden. Michael Greco, who I've known forever, conceived it based on the Amalfi Coast. So it feels like the California and Italian coastlines blended into one. It's mostly known for the brunch menu in their lush, "secret" garden. It's whimsical, it's sexy, and again, very Instagrammable. And because it was founded by this hospitality trailblazer, their attention to service is second to none. That's what I really like about it. I love it. They also have an amazing margarita. Their margarita, you know, definitely, definitely competes with with The Bungalow's."
"The Polo Bar at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel—it's a place within a place within a place. This is probably even closer to [where I live] than Wally's, so I'm here daily, because I do all my meetings there. It's like the epicenter of the LA power dining. I'm talking about people who run the industry. The bar is the best part. It's this beautiful classic bar—it's tiny. I think it only has five bar seats. There'll be these big executives having lunch. I walked in last time and Jessica Alba was there with her team and I said, 'I don't know what's happening here, but I'm directing it.' And sure enough, I'm directing that project, That's what happens at the Polo Lounge."
