Kimpton Hotel Wilshire by IHG

Nice room and rooftop bar We had a pretty good stay here. Our room was a nice size as we used an IHG suite upgrade. Location is convenient; not a lot immediately around in terms of restaurants but close to several museums and The Grove shopping and dining area as well as an easy Uber ride to Beverly Hills. We enjoyed breakfast on the roof as well as happy hour appetizers and a drink one evening. Good view and food. On the “needs improvement” side, our room windows were very dirty, bathroom lighting was poor and the wine at the complimentary wine hour was pretty wretched. I don’t expect much for free but it was worse than airline wine. A decent choice if the mid-Wilshire area works well for a stay.

Nice hotel on Wilshire It doesn’t look like much from the outside and the lobby isn’t much, but the Kimpton Wilshire is a really nice hotel. Our room was decent sized and quiet. Love the rooftop pool, it’s such a nice place to have breakfast, and our server was friendly and fast. Also enjoyed the cold brew in the coffee room. Big shoutout to Carolina at the front desk who was so helpful about a couple of special requests, as well as Luis from Signature Parking, which handles the valet service. Only gave it four stars as the pool got really crowded with people who were not hotel guests. They showed up early and parked themselves on the lounges all day so we never got to use them. Perhaps they couldn’t aside a few for guests? The music is really loud too, which is too bad as the pool would otherwise be a great place to chill.

Fantastic It was my first time on the rooftop and what a treat! The food was served timely, tasty and the server (sorry, can't remember her name) was attentive. Plus, the rooftop view was clear skies and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm looking forward to going back soon!

Great location Small hotel in a convenient location right next to the Academy Award Museum. Rooms are in good shape. We had a lovely room with an outdoor patio. Nespresso coffee is offered free of charge all day. Staff is friendly. Loved the free wine upon arrival. Good choice if you'd like to be close to West Hollywood. Would choose the hotel again.

Beware the Penthouse We stayed here between Christmas and the New Year. We decided to splurge on the Penthouse, which is a great space with one major issue: elevator noise. The penthouse is on the top floor of the hotel, right next to the roof garden/pool/bar, but also right next to the elevator machinery. Every time one of the elevators would start, run or stop, the machinery would make noise. It was by no means a deafening noise, but loud enough to be disturbing and to keep us awake at night. Luckily, the elevators stop being used much during the middle of the night so we were able to get some sleep then. I searched for other penthouse reviews on here but no one had mentioned the elevator noise. We complained about it twice to the front desk, while also knowing that that they could not really do anything about it. (All the staff we interacted with were excellent, though.) On the plus side, the penthouse has a huge outdoor patio (photo below) and a nice living room that can also open onto the patio during nice weather. Another plus here was a daily happy hour in the lobby with a free beverage such as a glass of wine. When we booked this, we thought we were booking the Kimpton Palomar in Westwood, which is also on Wilshire and where we had stayed once before. But we ended up really enjoying the location of this one more than the Westwood location. We were able to walk to the L.A. County Museum of Art, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and places like the Grove shopping center and the Holocaust Museum. We also walked to the Beverly Center and parts of Beverly Hills. Due to the presence of street people in the area we would not have done much walking at night, but there were several very good casual restaurants close by (The Alchemist Cafe, Tawanna Thai, and Rocco's Pizza). We will definitely stay here again-- just not in the Penthouse.