A newsletter from the editors of LA Magazine
Six things the city is talking about this week — the openings, closings, and quiet power moves our editors think you should know about. Written by the people who cover Los Angeles for a living, sent before the rest of the internet catches up.
INSIDE EACH ISSUE
The LA Brief is built around four fixed editorial beats. You will know the format by the second issue. You will know the city better by the fourth.
The single story our editors think mattered most this week — a first-look at a new restaurant in Frogtown, the developer who just bought a corner of Highland Park, the gallery opening that quietly defined the season. One piece, told at length.
A short, opinionated list of smaller items: a pop-up, a clothing drop, a rule change at a neighborhood bar, a record store restock, a small civic fight worth paying attention to. The kind of detail that makes a local feel like a local.
Where to eat this week, written by a working restaurant critic who lives in the neighborhood he covers. Includes one new review and one reservation we just managed to land — and how you can still get one.
A short essay from one of our writers — on a sunset, a freeway closure, a memoir, a single piece of public art. The part of the newsletter readers tell us they read first. A small piece of writing about a very large city.
RECENT ISSUES
Three weeks from the archive. Sent free to anyone with an email address and a reason to pay attention to Los Angeles.
Plus the developer who just paid $48M for a Sunset Junction parking lot, why a Koreatown barista is suddenly the most photographed person in the city, and a Closer on the last bookshop on Lankershim Boulevard.
Plus a Santa Monica taco counter's quiet Michelin surprise, the Echo Park lake redesign nobody is talking about, and a Closer on driving the 110 at 6 a.m. on a Sunday.
Plus the Beverly Hills real estate listing that broke everyone's brain, why a Highland Park vintage shop is suddenly national news, and a Closer on the strange return of the Los Angeles breakfast meeting.
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
“We started The LA Brief because Los Angeles coverage had become a tourist's newsletter. The openings were listed but never reviewed. The closings were noted but never mourned. The Brief is the opposite of that — a working document for the people who actually live here, written by the people who actually live here. We are independent of, and unaffiliated with, the legacy print title Los Angeles Magazine. We are a small newsroom on Sunset Boulevard, and this is the only email we send.”
Mariana Castillo
Founding Editor, LA Magazine · Editor, The LA Brief
BY THE NUMBERS
Every number below is verified by an independent third party — not marketing copy, not our opinion.
subscribers to The LA Brief
average open rate — nearly double the publisher category average of 22%
monthly readers across the LA Magazine network
issues of The LA Brief published since launch in 2014
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