Akbar

Akbar is the beating heart of Silver Lake's queer social scene — and for a significant portion of Los Angeles's gay community, it is the better answer to "where do you drink?" than anywhere on Santa Monica Boulevard. The bar occupies a modest space on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, the east Hollywood neighbourhood that has been a centre of alternative and queer life in LA for decades. The aesthetic is deliberately unpretentious: no go-go dancers, no cover charge, no dress code, no velvet rope. The crowd is younger on average than WeHo, more likely to be wearing band T-shirts than designer labels, and more likely to be talking about music, art, or politics than about who is at the next table. The drinks are cheap by Los Angeles standards. The jukebox is excellent. Regular DJs on weekends lift the energy without transforming the bar into a nightclub. Akbar is the bar that the people who live in Silver Lake go to when they want to drink with their community rather than perform for it. For visitors who find WeHo too polished, too expensive, or too uniform, Akbar is the immediate and obvious alternative — and Silver Lake's broader queer geography, which extends from Sunset Boulevard to Echo Park, provides a full evening's worth of alternatives.