There’s many things to do in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but if you’re a writer, you need some ’scenic’ inspiration. Not everyone can afford a quiet and cozy getaway cottage, but struggling writers can take heart in the profusion of writers cafe that seem to have popped up in the metros.

Literary cafes are part of the tradition and art scene of Europe, but the fad just seems to be taking off in the U.S. There’s even a book on the best literary cafes in Europe, by Noel Riley Fitch - The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe, which lists 40 of the most important cafés, literarily speaking (is that right?), which are still in business across 20 European cities. Here’s an excerpt of a review of the book by the Independent, UK.

Henrik Ibsen acquired the dubious honour of becoming a tourist attraction in his own lifetime as German and French visitors would gather to watch him take his regular two o’clock coffee at the Grand Café in Oslo, where Edvard Munch was also a regular. Sigmund Freud was so fond of his local Café Landtmann in Vienna that he was seen carrying out consultations within its wood-panelled rooms. In London’s Café Royal, Verlaine and Rimbaud squabbled over drinks, and Oscar Wilde created scandal (as he seems to have done throughout the cafés of Europe).

Let’s move across the Atlantic to present day Los Angeles. Photo courtesy & copyrights Literati, LLC. The Los Angeles Times has started something called a Guide (I guess its like a collection of user contributed guides). And in this section of the LAT, Sari Heifetz contributes a guide which lists and describes some of the best cafes for writers in Los Angeles. The list includes the Literati cafe in Brentwood, Novel Cafe in Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Public Library, Urth Caffe in Beverly Hills, Susina Bakery & Cafe and Insomnia Cafe in the Fairfax District, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Bourgeois Pig and Sabor y Cultura in Hollywood, Coffee Table in Silver lake/Echo Park, and the Figaro Cafe in Los Feliz.

Let’s move to San Francisco. A definitive guide listing all the historic literary hotspots in San Francisco is available with WritersDigest, written by Jordan E. Rosenfeld. His list includes Caffe Trieste, the Make-Out Room, Vesuvio Cafe and Green Apple Books, which is a bookstore, but located in an area with plenty of restaurants.

Posted on May 27th, 2008 by PLing
Filed under: California, Restaurants