Indeed, Endorffine Coffee lies hidden inside a shopping arcade that you wouldn’t necessarily visit as a tourist unless you know what you were looking for. What I didn’t expect to see at 11am was a never ending line of people waiting to get their hands on Howlin’ Ray’s Nashville style fried chicken. Another place you clearly needed to know about and by the looks of it, a lot of people did.

Endorffine is barely more than a small gallery, dominated by a U-shaped bar in concrete grey with a few artworks on the wall. The star here is the coffee and how founder Jack Benchakul prepares it. As Hannah from Verve had promised, Jack uses only Modbar equipment to pull his espresso shots and prepare his pourovers but the true stars of the menu are his out of the ordinary signature drinks, including: Coconut Macha Latte, Vanilla Pandan Cold Brew Latte and the Palm Sugar Whiskey Cold Brew Latte.

As I took a seat at the bar, Jack was emptying a bucket of cold brew that had been extracting for a few hours. While he really only misses his white lab coat to truly look like a chemist, that is not the entire truth about his career up to this point. His way into coffee took him via the pastry and restaurant business before he had his coffee epiphany at a Blue Bottle Cart after getting scolded by a colleague for wanting to put cream in his coffee.

A few years later he was running a Cognoscenti Coffee pop up coffee shop in the local Scoops outlet before he decided that it was time to go his own way. George Hu, the ‘godfather’ of Chinatown offered him a space in this arcade and Jack didn’t have to think for long before he said yes.

Jack works mostly with the likes of Heart Coffee Roasters from Portland and chose subdued and minimalist equipment and design for his own café because he wants to be as transparent as possible. Truth be told, in his café there really is nowhere to hide anyway.

Yet, wandering around the grid-like core of the city reveals surprises around every corner, such as Nice Coffee by Tyler Wells. Located in the City National Plaza surrounded by highrises that offer some shade from the intense Californian sun for at least part of the day, Nice Coffee is the kind of coffee kiosk you wish you had in your local neighbourhood too.

Open only during the week and largely serving local office workers, residents and the occasional tourists, Nice Coffee is a nice local antidote to bigger brand outlets from Blue Bottle and Verve Coffee in the viscinity. Tyler Wells, best known for his role as co-founder of Handsome Coffee Roasters, spent some years consulting in the local L.A. coffee scene before returning to coffee retail with Nice Coffee.

His staff are incredibly friendly, chatting to me about their coffees and L.A. best fried chicken sandwich all in one go, the coffee from 49th Parallel is excellent and the fact that you can enjoy almost year-round summery temperatures in the city is something us northern Europeans can only dream of. With Nice Coffee Tyler reinvented himself once again, finding another way to make exceptional coffee approachable and accessible.

The kiosk itself has already been dubbed a ‘design icon’ by many in the coffee world and you can easily see why. Metal and wood dominate the outside while a low bar and big open glass-free windows allow you to enjoy all the action without feeling left out. Coffees are served in beautiful ceramics from WRF and coffees are pulled on a low-riding La Marzocco Strada.

If you’re on your way to The Broad or Moca for a serious serving of mind-boggling art or you’re just looking for that much-needed afternoon kick up your butt, Nice Coffee in the Financial District is the place. Order your favourite coffee from the bar together with a tasty pain au chocolat and sit by the fountain while taking in downtown’s diverse and busy lifestyle. You won’t regret it!

After taking a casual walk up and down the street, we found Go Get Em Tiger, a cozy neighbourhood coffee shop that had the blinds down to stop the afternoon sun from giving all its guests a hefty sunburn. If we hadn’t seen someone come out with a cup of coffee, we would have missed it.

The inside of this friendly coffee shop that belongs to the same family as G+B Coffee is bright and warm, sporting lots of wood, old industrial elements and cute touches of colour that give it an almost nostalgic feel. After inspecting the menu I decided to go for their signature drink ‘Business & Pleasure’. Consisting of three different beverages, B&P starts off with a refreshing palate cleanser made from Chinese green tea with citrus before one transitions to a short of espresso (in my case it was Kuna Coffee’s Ethiopia, Chelelektu) and finishing off with a gorgeous glass of homemade almond and macadamia milk, a bit of raw sugar and another shot of the same coffee blended together.

This sequence of drinks really hit the spot and left me feeling invigorated. Next to Kuna Coffee from Seattle, they also serve a selection of coffees from the likes of 49th Parallel, Methodical Coffee, Ruby Coffee Roasters and Heart Coffee. From cappuccino to drip, it’s all on the menu, accompanied by a decent choice of sweet and savoury snacks.

If this is not enough to convince you of GGET’s quality, you should know that co-founder Charles Babinski came second in the 2015 World Barista Championships in Seattle. Not a bad trophy to have on display. After your coffee, we strongly recommend getting some yummy icecream from Salt & Straw next door. But beware. Their single scoops are as big as your face so don’t go crazy!

Housed inside a former office of Studio Mai who also designed the interior for Verve, this coffee shop is equipped with top-notch coffee making gear and offers welcome respite from the blistering California heat. The entrance is lush and green, inviting your to fancy yourself at the hanging gardens of Babylon, while the interior has a more minimalistic decor. Exposed brick meets wood and metal with soft lighting that keeps the atmosphere warm and friendly.

The coffee setup is equally impressive. Espresso shots are pulled on a rare 4-group Kees van der Westen Spirit, filter coffees are prepared on a high-tech Modbar and for cold coffee lovers there’s cold brew and nitro on tap. Next to that, they also stock a healthy selection of cold pressed juices and shots, including one that literally put tears in my eyes. Beware of the ‘Hot Shot’.

According to location manager Hana Kaneshige, Verve DTLA will soon be celebrating its 3-year anniversary of bringing the people of Los Angeles outstanding specialty coffees from Santa Cruz. Enough reason to make this great coffee shop a pitstop on your discovery of the city’s most vibrant neighbourhood.