Shutters on the Beach

It's a great luxury hotel. As we live in LA, we rarely stay. Yesterday, our CPA appointment ran unexpectedly short and we bridged our time until dinner with drinks on their balcony. Service, ambiance (and view) and drinks we as nice as one would expect from a place like this. We were the only table who did not get chips with their drinks. Why "only" four out of five stars? Because of the chips? C'mon, gimme a break. Of course not. Without question this is a very upscale hotel. I try to avoid to combine this with upscale expectations - how could you rate this say against a $100-a-night-motel. The motel will always fall short. So in my rating world, when I go, the place as automatically three stars. If it had not, I would not go. Depending on the experience, regardless of the status of the place, I give it more, or ... less. The place is and was really nice and I highly recommend it. By pure definition, it sure deserves five stars. A five star hotel with five star service and five star prices. Now, having lived in the world of the rich-beauty-famous for most of my life, that alone does not impress me too much. If the five star hotel would fall short - and I have seen this, my individual experience may lead to two stars or less, and sadly, it happened. In this case, we loved it and would go again. BUT: to achieve five stars in my rating scheme, I need to be willing to make a 30+ min detour just to go to this particular place. And while ambiance, view & stuff was nice, it was not nice/ special/ outstanding enough to earn its five points. And after Shutters, I went to a place that was clearly worth five stars. A place I have been to often, in walking distance - and a place to I would drive an hour out of my way just to go. But that's another story :-)

We combined a celebration of my mother's 85th birthday with dropping my son off for his freshman year of college into a weekend at Shutters. We arranged for a private birthday party in the Coast Restaurant in the private dining room, and we also gathered the whole family together the next morning for breakfast in our room with room service. The rooms, the service, and the food were all exceptional, and the hotel staff very consistently went above and beyond for the event. I've been visiting this hotel on and off for more than thirty years since I first came to Los Angeles, and it's really impressive how well they've kept up the standards!

The Shutters is a wonderful experience the location, rooms ,staff and service were excellent. Expectations were high and they were exceeded. We had a small medical issue while there and the staff was so attentive and helpful!!! Along with providing what we needed without asking.

We had 3 rooms for our family with city view. They were directly at the pool. Day one: event infront of our windows, around 50 external guests. Pool area was therefore blocked for hotel guests. Day two: around 100 external guests partying at „ our“ pool in front of my window. You had to keep shades shut. Loud music until 10:45 followed by moving back furniture, cleaning, etc. Short night for my family

We popped in for a drink and a snack. We all had a drink and slice of cake but were told we couldn’t sit down as we weren’t eating food!! Now at that point I was a bit confused as i consider cake to be food and if not food then I’m not sure what it is. We were told that the outside area was for eating only reserved for those who were eating but that we couldn’t sit there! Then went inside and were told the tables were reserved for food only aswell. It was quite comical really as I’m from the uk in the uk cake is food!! I did say I thought cake was food!! They didn’t reply!! The waiter had to speak to the manager to check if cake was sufficiently enough food to sit down!!! There was no space at the bar to sit either and as my children are 12,13 and 17 I didn’t think they’d be allowed. Never have I been to an establishment and treated so badly considering the price of their cake as well!! I obviously wouldn’t recommend as it’s rather stuck up and actually ridiculous. Not sure where we were meant to eat it. Eventually they did sit us at a table inside but it was definitely reluctantly. I’m sure the meals and food served is lovely. The cake was lovely but I wouldn’t go back!! Especially as the cake was $20 a slice plus tax!!! I might be going mad but cake is definitely food!!!!