Beverly Hills bursts with intriguing places to meet for treats – culinary, confectionary, couture, cocktails and even canine commiseration.
Is Beverly Hills, California an exclusive enclave full of luxury cars and glamorous people? Or is it a fashion mecca for star-gazing shoppers? Is Beverly Hills, with some of the world’s most luxurious hotels, a tourist destination? Or is it…a village?
I met with Tiffany Davis, who says Beverly Hills can “recapture the magic” of 50 years ago and bring back the “village feel” with thoughtful community development. Davis, who has traveled the world working and living in some of Amerca’s other iconic destinations, including Nashville and Cape Cod, loves experiencing her home neighborhood.
She is proving so by visiting with her neighbors through a “20 with Tiffany” plan to chat each day for nearly three weeks at a wide range of Beverly Hills charming, vibrant establishments.
“I am a huge advocate of getting people out to new places or even old places they forgot about,” said Davis, who long ago lived in a studio apartment on Oakhurst Street while she worked at…Tiffany & Company. Tiffany…at Tiffanys!”
Beverly Hills Long-Term Resident
Years later, and now a professional powerhouse in entertainment management and event planning, Davis is still one of the 60 percent of residents who rent in Beverly Hills. Her home is between the Four Seasons Hotel and L’Ermitage Hotel, the latter of which just got city council approval to add a rooftop restaurant and expand ground floor eatery.
“Hotels taxes, on top of their sales tax and property tax, drive critical revenue to the city budget, which is how we are able to afford world class police and fire departments,” said Davis, the president and co-founder of Quay Entertainment.
Quay produces world class, worldwide entertainment events and festivals at the Super Bowl; NASCAR; Formula One Racing in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi; Academy of Country Music Awards and College Football’s National Championship. Also, the Athens and London Olympic Games, which are returning, in 2028, to Los Angeles.
Beverly Hills is only beginning to consider a plan to leverage and maximize the opportunities the Olympic Games bring, a situation precisely in Davis’ wheelhouse since she has impactful experience working in that capacity.
Village Visits
Beverly Hills bursts with intriguing places to meet for treats – culinary, confectionary, couture, cocktails and even canine commiseration. Davis drops in on far more than the 20 establishments she listed on her website to invite people to meet up.
She attended the grand re-opening of Saks Fifth Avenue store, for instance; celebrated her birthday at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge; and joined a Lunar New Year Celebration at Xi’an, the colorful Chinese restaurant in the city’s “Golden Triangle” area.
On Valentine’s Day, I visited with Davis and spirited others at Sweet Angeles Bakery, in the Rodeo Collection, where cupcakes and champagne are on the menu.
Davis has worked with the world’s A-list athletes, artists, and entertainers such as Taylor Swift, Usher, Reba McEntire, and Beyonce, many of whom are her Beverly Hills neighbors.
However, I saw she also seemed comfortable chatting with locals when I was first introduced to her a few days earlier near the petting zoo at the Sunday morning Beverly Hills Farmers Market. For someone with a master’s degree in education, Davis is a good listener.
The First of 20 With Tiffany
If you visit Beverly Hills, or live there, it is useful to know her “20 with Tiffany” tour began at Beverly Hills Cookies. Subsequent stops, in addition to Sweet Angeles and the Farmer’s Market, included Mickey Fine Grill; Pascal Café; Sweet Beverly Café; Wally’s Wines; La Provence Patisserie and Café and Euro Caffe. Also, Pompadour for coffee and croissants and a canine gathering across from the Beverly Hills Dog Park.
I now have a homework list to try out each of these establishments, though I drop into Wally’s from time to time for an interesting glass of wine from their extensive list. Wally’s is also a great shop to pick up a statement-making bottle of wine and gourmet cheeses to take to a dinner party or gathering.
It is a popular nightlife spot but during the day I prefer to sit outside, sometimes with my laptop, and pick on the custom charcuterie board they prepare with cranberries, almonds, figs, honey and my choices of sharp or creamy imported or domestic cheeses and savory Spanish meats with fresh bread.
South Beverly Drive = “Beverly Village?”
The commercial “Golden Triangle” district of Beverly Hills, which includes world famous Rodeo Drive, gets a great deal of attention and business, but Davis is keen to point out the South Beverly Drive area, on the other side of Wilshire Boulevard, behind the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire Hotel, as an area she frequents.
“I patronize the shops and get my nails done there and I think it would be interesting to create a pilot program there for a ‘Beverly Village’ neighborhood-driven destination.”
I took Davis’s advice and strolled over to South Beverly Drive, where I discovered the new Piccolo Paradiso, a “tiny paradise” of an authentic Italian restaurant I now frequent in part because I can practice speaking Italian to the servers.
Piccolo Paradiso is near the classy Honor Bar; and South Beverly Grill; up the street from casual offerings such as California Pizza Kitchen; Urth Café; Pinkberry frozen yogurt, and Beverly Hills Cookies, where Davis began her “20 with Tiffany.” Al’s Newsstand there is a classic, old-fashioned, open-air magazine and newspaper rack, the likes of which I hope will never be extinct in the digital age.
Metro Station Coming Soon
The businesses of South Beverly Drive stand to benefit, it would seem, from the new Metro rail station being built across Wilshire Drive near Canon Drive, though the coming train stop in Beverly Hills makes some residents nervous.
“The Metro station needs security,” said Davis, who also advocates for good street lighting on South Beverly to promote and secure a sense of security and safety. “Those who arrive at the Metro station need to be greeted with a sign that says ‘Welcome to Beverly Hills,’ but they should also be advised the city is under surveillance.”
Davis is also a proponent of “resident only” parks in addition to the public amenity offerings throughout Beverly Hills. This includes my favorite: the free live concerts on summer Thursday evenings in the Beverly Canon Gardens. The gardens are walking distance from where the Metro station will be, one of the reasons she suggests Beverly Hills security officers make their presence known on foot.
As for me, I have made it a tradition, during the concert intermissions, to walk across Canon Drive to the famed Spago restaurant for a spicy margarita mixed by Angel at the bar – a concoction Spago’s celebrity chef and owner Wolfgang Puck once invented at my table.
Davis has ideas about how to efficiently help walkers move more safely through intersections of turning vehicles by adjusting the timing of the stop lights with the “walk/don’t walk” signals.
There are a number of underground parking garages in Beverly Hills which offer two hours of free parking during the daytime, and reasonable rates after that.
Beverly Hills – Nashville – Cape Cod
Photo from The Real Tiffany Davis Instagram
For a cosmopolitan woman whom LA Weekly ranked #1 in a group of “Trailblazers in Entertainment,” Davis said she grew up with bowling and roller rinks. “You know, things you actually did,” she explained to the Beverly Hills Southwest Homeowners Association Forum.
“I have a deep history in Beverly Hills going back over 20 years, but with the broader perspective of living in two other similarly iconic cities, both known for tourism and both with rich histories: Nashville, which has grown too fast, and Cape Cod, which has no development and no economy beyond tourism season.
Those cities have also experienced issues with growth, development, crime, traffic and loss of history,” she said, bringing both ends of the spectrum to the conversation: rapid growth and no growth.
“Nashville was a small town with a lot of charm and history. You could get across it in five minutes. There was never any traffic. Then it became a hot spot. Everybody wanted to live there. Development exploded in an unplanned way. Historical buildings were overshadowed,” Davis recalled. “Cape Cod is beautiful, bucolic, and untouched. They love it and fight to keep it that way. The problem is there is no economy.”
In terms of a diverse economy for both tourists and residents, Davis, who aspires to be elected to and serve the Beverly Hills City Council, asked these questions:
“Do we have coffee shops I can afford? Restaurants without an hour-and-a-half wait? Can we bring kids to those restaurants?”
During her “20 for Tiffany” tour, she surely found out.
Read more of Michael Patrick’s work at The Travel Tattler and contact him at [email protected] Order his book Travel Tattler – Less Than Torrid Tales at https://amzn.to/3Qm9FjN
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