LA DESCARGA IN LOS ANGELES

Address: 1159 N Western Ave, Los Angeles

Parking: Street parking

Phone: 323-466-1324

Website: http://www.ladescargala.com

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Chandeliers hang from distressed ceilings and candles flicker at intimate leather booths, creating a tarnished elegance that is warm, sultry and hauntingly beautiful. Live musicians play nightly from the overhead balcony, where dancers shake their assets during burlesque shows Thursdays through Saturdays. 

A well-dressed, slightly more mature crowd fills all available space in this pocket-sized palace. The atmosphere starts out reserved and gradually livens up, with a background of salsa music punctuated by the sound of cocktail shakers and the fragrance of freshly muddled mint—someone’s inevitably going to order a mojito, after all.

If you don’t have a table, it’s standing room only, but you won’t mind when a saxophonist bursts into song in your midst and you realize you’ve got the best view of the burlesque show. After you’ve joined in on a chorus of "Guantanamera," your standing area becomes a dance floor, and there’s no use resisting.

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How to get inside: From the street, La Descarga appears only in name on an otherwise nondescript East Hollywood apartment building. After you’ve cleared the doorman and crept up a dingy, candlelit stairwell, you are greeted by a hostess who directs you through a dusty armoire leading not to Narnia, but old Havana.