I'm a big fan of Sofitel hotels (particularly in Europe) and liked this one's central location (used to live nearby so know the neighborhood). It was an okay stay. Service was competent (a previous reviewer noted that there were a surprising lot of bell staff and I have to agree) and the food in the restaurant was just outstanding, everything, from breakfast (where you served a delicious, complimentary mini-smoothie) to lunch (fantastic pizza) to cocktails on the ingenuously designed outdoor patio that almost makes you forget you're at the crossroads of two massive L.A. boulevards.
The nightclub/bar, which is adjacent, frankly looked like something from the early 1980s, and was rather creepy, anything but enticing.
Our room was just so-so. First room I was given was tiny, with a shower-only bathroom (I'm a regular Sofitel customer and I don't understand why I was given a crappy room to begin with when clearly there were other, better rooms in my price category). To its credit Sofitel moved quickly when I asked for a bathroom with tub, and the second room, along the same corridor, was much larger. Pleasant but unexceptional with one particularly oddity: There was no headboard and a framed print was placed where your head would rest if you were reading in bed. Literally the framed hit the middle of the back of my head. Bizarre and uncomfortable.
The bathroom was adequate but nothing special, even with the aforementioned bath, which was one of those 1970s models that's shallow.
The view was terrible -- we looked out on the Beverly Center parking lot. Depressing.
I don't think I'll go back to this hotel again -- there are too many better options for the same money in L.A. It reminds of the Miami airport Sofitel, which also could use a cash infusion. But the big difference is that at the airport the pickings are slim. Here, not so much.
hotel reviews