Sunshine, sand, and celebrities at every turn—these are the traits that have long attracted visitors to Los Angeles, and if you like them, rest assured that they haven’t disappeared, and you can still enjoy them if you can squeeze into one of the most popular beachfront restaurants like Nobu Malibu or Giorgio Baldi.

But Los Angeles has much more to offer than the familiar. Off-the-beaten-path new restaurants and bars cement the city’s place as the world’s culinary capital. Big productions take place on outdoor and indoor stages. Museums are packed, including the long-awaited Academy Awards Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a $484 million tribute to Hollywood. Visitors are endless.

“The turnaround in Los Angeles is well underway,” said Adam Burke, president and CEO of the city’s tourism bureau, adding that Los Angeles is expected to welcome more than 46 million visitors this year, close to the record 50.7 million in 2019. “We are optimistic that Los Angeles will have fully recovered by the end of 2023,” Burke said.

Los Angeles is now the premier sushi capital of the country, if it wasn’t before. Sushi Tama, Morihiro and Kinkan are all high-end chef-run restaurants that opened during the pandemic and have won fans with their jewel-like takeout fish boxes. You can now reserve a sushi table at any of these restaurants, but plan ahead: Kinkan’s sushi table can be particularly tight, and prices for dining in here range from $125 to $250 per person.

The Black Lives Matter movement has given Los Angeles’ black businesses — especially restaurants — a newfound popularity. Critics have raved about Berbere, an Ethiopian-style vegetarian restaurant that opened in Santa Monica in 2021 (most dishes are under $20), and you’d be hard-pressed to find a prettier latte than at Bloom & Plume, which celebrity florist Maurice Harris opened next to his East Side flower shop before the pandemic (espressos start at $3.50). Several websites list the city’s best black-owned restaurants; Thrillist is a leader.

Low-carb health clichés aside, pizza is the order of the day. Plate after plate of pie is churned out from the open kitchen at Mother Wolf, Hollywood’s hottest new restaurant in the gleaming Art Deco landmark Civic Press Building, where Rihanna and Michelle Obama are fans. (Overheard at the bar: “If you squint, it’s like New York.”) Downtown’s De La Nonna serves grandmother-made pies (starting at $16, or 107 yuan) and refreshing Negronis. In Echo Park, east of the city, Grá takes pizza to health, serving it on an organic sourdough base and paired with “seasonal pickles” (Kimchi, a pickled cucumber salad) and natural wines, a dish that, incidentally, has inspired so many new bars that you might be forgiven for thinking someone stumbled across an underground supply chain.

Los Angeles’ major museums have reopened: The Broad will feature a new series of works by Takashi Murakami, as well as a series of American flag-themed art. Many of the city’s museums, including the Broad, the Getty Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (which will open in September with six floors of film industry memorabilia), require reservations and have their own mask and vaccine protocols. It’s best to check the official website before visiting.

Los Angeles is never short of events that bring together audiophiles of all kinds. The concert calendars at the city’s main outdoor performance venues, the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theater, are once again full. Baseball fans will flock to Dodger Stadium for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 19, while south of Los Angeles, jazz lovers will gather for the Newport Beach Jazz Festival in June. Rock musicians are also rejoicing: In August, Pasadena’s “It’s Not Easy” festival will welcome dozens of rock bands, including The Strokes and LCD Soundsystem.

Sports fans, take note: With the addition of Angel City FC to the National Women’s Soccer League, Los Angeles now has 11 professional teams, the most in the U.S. NFL fans flock to the newly opened SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl in February, and future quarterbacks can take a guided tour and try their hand at the field.

The new YouTube Theater, located in the same complex as SoFi Stadium, will welcome a strong lineup of Latino artists this summer and fall, including Rosalia, Gloria Trevi and Sebastian Atla.

For decades, Los Angeles’ Pride parade has been one of the world’s largest LGBTQ pride events, and it returns in full force this weekend, June 11. Old attractions are getting new things: the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, complete with a state-of-the-art welcome center, has reopened, and Universal Studios Hollywood has added The Secret Life of Pets.

Los Angeles added 2,100 new hotel rooms in 2021, ensuring every type of traveler feels at home. In the heart of downtown, the Kelly Wearstler-designed Proper Hotel (1100 South Broadway, rooms from $349) is a hot spot for locals and expats alike, where Art Deco meets a modern globetrotting aesthetic. The Preferred West Hollywood (8430 Sunset Boulevard, rooms from $525) brings a dose of maximalism to the Sunset Strip, with luxury rooms designed by Martin Brudnicki, a rooftop restaurant by Wolfgang Puck, and a lively pool scene.

The Maybourne Hotel in Beverly Hills (225 N. Canon Drive, rooms from $1,095) brings a touch of Britain to a faraway land west of the Atlantic; its high-end tea room, operated by sister property Claridge’s, will open later this year. For those who have plenty of cash to spend on instant gratification, the Beverly Hills Hotel (9641 Sunset Boulevard, rooms from $735), which celebrates its 110th anniversary this year, offers a $1,912 McCarthy’s salad, which comes with gold leaf, lobster, caviar, a bottle of Dom Perignon, and a sense of superiority that can cost more than an average monthly mortgage.