La Descarga's owners, well-known nightclub entrepreneur twins Mark and Johnny Houston, have nailed the blend of show, drink and smoke here. Since this second bar is technically not enclosed, cigars can be smoked here, taking care of one generally forbidden thing in much of California. Of course, the illusion of forbidden anything breaks down quickly when you see the well-stocked bar and when you walk into the second bar and note that the ceiling is open to the night sky. The walls are distressed, as if they, like the real buildings in Habana Vieja, required the attention of a Sherwin-Williams franchise. A night of forbidden, dare one say anti-revolutionary, pleasure. The idea here, I gather, is that I've entered a sort of speakeasy scene right out of Havana. A young lady instructs me to walk through a closet in which a few shirts are hanging and proceed down the catwalk to the spiral staircase into the main bar/dance floor. I am warmly greeted and instructed to ascend a flight of stairs where I will be met in a makeshift office. "Isn't there anything I can do?" the young man pleaded, having made a promise he won't be able to keep that night. The doorman politely informed that no one gets in without a reservation or identification. Still, as I waited to give my name at the door, a young man and three pretty women in very tight dresses sought to talk their way in.
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In truth La Descarga, which in this context means "the unloading," or letting go in Spanish, is a two-story, very small nightclub in an area of Hollywood just north of Koreatown that would hardly seem to qualify as a destination. "Located in an abandoned whitefish factory in Little Israel." The first time I visited Los Angeles's hippest club and cigar bar, I thought it could have been a place I‘d heard about from Stefon, Saturday Night Live's uber-trendy human about town.