Hotel Sofitel Los Angeles by Hal Peat

Melrose Place, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood – making the Sofitel Los Angeles your power base away from home affords you ease of access to all of these must visit areas of Los Angeles, while also providing you with the comfort, convenience and Gallic style that are the hallmarks of the Sofitel brand worldwide. This particular member of the Sofitel family is also somewhat interesting insofar as they have chosen to be geographically central to so much. A wise choice, as some of Sofitel’s other American urban locations make it feasible more for the overnight airport bound traveler than the city stayover vistor. At Sofitel Los Angeles, you step out onto the front driveway and-- whether by foot or by car--in a matter of minutes you reach any number of different L.A. locales.

Views are everything when you stay in L.A.—the ambience of the city literally takes on a different perspective when one has a bird’s eye view of the rolling Hollywood Hills and the early morning or evening twinkling lights scattered across their contours. This is what a good northward facing suite at Sofitel affords you, along with a panorama of the eclectic collection of architecture ranging from the sleek surfaces of the Pacific Design Center to the terracota pinks of apartment blocks. The rooms themselves are a mix of functionalism and fashion with an L.A. bent: while Pierre Deux fabrics highlight the room’s design and French doors open to city vistas, inside the guest remains connected to essentials via dual phones, voicemail, dataports, and a television with internet access. This visitor’s deluxe room also included a small work area with writing desk, second television with VCR, and a trompe d’oeil wallpapering of book shelves that created a small library effect. If L.A. is all about image, the French seem to say, so much of that image is also all about illusion.

If image is a near legendary concern of Angelenos, then certainly one aspect which everyone gets real enough about it in is fitness and wellness. Sofitel Los Angeles has taken due note of this also with its Club Sofitel high up on the top floor, and probably one of the city’s best equipped hotel based gyms with 2,400 square feet of workout space that includes cardio equipment, 24 different weight machines, a full range of free weights, complimentary fruit and water to refresh yourself, and of course private locker rooms. Adjacent outdoors is a sundeck and outdoor heated pool bordered by three poolside cabanas. If you find it hard to be fitness motivated while you travel on business or pleasure, Sofitel has a solution with a “Get Fit Now” package. This lets you train like the stellar elite hereabouts, thanks to the individual attention provided by the onsite personal training team of Nancy Kennedy and Bobby Strom, a duo that has put everyone from Julia Roberts and Kelly Preston to Winona Ryder and Lara Flynn Boyle through their exercise paces. Following your personal workout, you go through a nutrition session with your personal trainer, called "Eating on Location," to learn how stars eat healthy when they are on tour or shooting a film.

Eating on location is one way to describe the ground-level French brasserie, Gigi. An early morning breakfast here is a peaceful ritual broken only by the greetings of the waiters, and the murmurings of neighboring entertainment executives plotting the next studio deal over a quick coffee. Casual Gigi, however, boasts both French and American specialities and, if you want to keep on track with the fitness-minded nutrition, quite a few healthy items on the menu. Begin your day with such fare as egg white Frittata with semi-dried tomatoes and basil feta cheese; scrambled egg whites with Portabello mushrooms, spinach, grilled tomatoes and wheat toast; and freshly squeezed juice. While Sofitel’s restaurant menu combines good taste with good health, the rest of its public interiors mingle a California relaxed mood with the city’s sense of energy. The main lobby with its grand central staircase, together with the Lobby Bar piano lounge, all contribute to the atmosphere of a bygone era of glamour that has its contemporary face in the comings and goings of a high profile world of media figures who appreciate this Sofitel’s interpretation of past and present L.A.