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Fans take photos beneath a mural depicting L.A. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, created by artist Robert Vargas on the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo. Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles.
For those interested in exploring the region’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss. Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles. L.A. has a lot to offer, including its vast and varied portfolio of public art. It’s even been referred to as the mural capital of the world.
So if you want to explore some of the city’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.
“LA Rising” at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo celebrates the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, depicting him in his two roles — hitter and pitcher. “Blue Heaven on Earth” is a love letter to the Dodgers, depicting both Shohei Ohtani and the late Fernando Venezuela. California native and Olympian Alysa Liu captured the world’s attention with her figure skating in the Winter Olympics. This mural in Gardena celebrates her win.
“Jazz on the field” is an ode to Wrigley Field and the Dunbar Hotel in South L.A. and depicts jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Etta James, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.When Kendrick Lamar featured Tam’s Burgers in his “Not Like Us” music video, the burger spot in Compton commissioned a mural highlighting the rapper’s unforgettable single. A section of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, designed by muralist Judy Baca, that showcases pivotal moments in Los Angeles History.get bigger.
Along the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley, on Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street. Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios, two lifelong friends from Lima, opened Merka Saltao in Culver City in August 2025, with a simple mission: to bring Peruvian food to everyday American diets through a fast-casual format built around lomo saltado — Peru's most iconic dish.
Then a viral storm blew up. Peruvian cuisine has long punched below its weight in the U.S. despite being one of the most complex and biodiverse food cultures in the world. Franco and Barrios are betting that accessibility — not exclusivity — is the key to changing that, offering bowls starting at $13.60 in a neighborhood where Erewhon and Cava are the competition.
A lomo saltado burrito on their menu sparked an online backlash from self-described Peruvian purists who accused the owners of"Mexicanizing" their heritage — igniting a broader debate about authenticity, fusion and who gets to define what a cuisine can become. The controversy, which spilled from Instagram onto Reddit, ultimately drove more customers through the door than any marketing campaign could have. Franco says the restaurant is roughly breaking even and he has his eyes on a second location.
For now, he's focused on making Merka Saltao a fixture in Culver City — one burrito, bowl or salad at a time. The wok-fried chunks of steak, dressed in a soy-and-oyster sauce reduction spiked with vinegar, saturate the rice inside the tortilla, highlighting the sweet heat of ají amarillo mixed with the velvety texture of pinto beans. It's a beautiful confluence of flavors.
It is also, depending on who you ask, either a creative act of evolution or a betrayal of Peruvian culinary heritage. The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao wasn't exactly a calculated move. Lifelong friends Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios — who met in high school in Lima — came to Los Angeles to bring Peruvian food to the masses, first through a ghost kitchen concept they ran from 2021 to 2023.
The burrito happened almost by accident: a member of their kitchen team brought in a tortilla one day, someone suggested wrapping the lomo saltado in it, they ate it, and within three days, it was on the menu. Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, inside their Culver City restaurant. The two lifelong friends from Lima opened the fast-casual brick-and-mortar location for their Peruvian concept in August 2025.
The data from the ghost kitchen made the case for keeping it there. Franco and Barrios had launched with around 140 dishes — lomo saltado, ceviche, chicken dishes, the works. But the numbers kept pointing to the same thing: wherever lomo saltado appeared on the menu, in whatever form, burrito, bowl, salad, it was the winner. The two friends made the leap to brick-and-mortar in August 2025, opening Merka Saltao in downtown Culver City. It's one of the more competitive dining corridors in L.A.
, the kind of block that can support a $16 wellness bowl and a craft beer bar in the same stretch, populated by Amazon employees on lunch breaks, families on weekend outings, and food-literate regulars who will absolutely have opinions about what goes in a burrito. Those opinions arrived faster than Franco expected.
Within the first week of opening, an influencer came in and posted about the restaurant — but instead of showing the full menu, the bowls, the chicha morada, the flexibility of the concept, they showed the burrito. Just the burrito. Franco working the wok at Merka Saltao. The high-heat wok technique at the heart of lomo saltado traces its roots to Chinese immigrants in PeruThe comments turned quickly.
"No! Peruvians don't eat burritos. ¿Qué car—o es eso?
" — roughly,"what the hell is this? " — wrote one commenter. Another said"Burritos? We don't eat burritos in 🇵🇪”.
Franco describes sitting at his computer reading the pile-on, feeling something between anger and devastation.
"There was a moment where I probably even cried," he said,"thinking, I've made a mistake. " But then he looked at the numbers. 30,000 had seen the post…. And half the comments were in his defense. He took the conversation to Reddit, posting to r/FoodLosAngeles asking the community directly: am I wrong for this?
The response was overwhelming — hundreds of comments, almost entirely in his favor, and a surge of new customers walking through the door shortly after. This is Los Angeles, where many of the dishes that define the Southern California diet were born precisely from cultures colliding. Roy Choi built an empire on Korean tacos. Al pastor traces its technique to Lebanese immigrants who brought the vertical spit.
The California roll, invented by Japanese chefs in Los Angeles in the 1960s, introduced an entire country to sushi. None of these dishes destroyed the traditions they borrowed from. If anything, they expanded their audience. And the lomo saltado burrito isn't exactly a novel concept in Southern California to begin with — everyone fromrun by 2025 James Beard Award-nominated chef Daniel Castillo, has featured their own version.
Even Disney's California Adventure got in on it, serving a lomo saltado burrito out of theThe lomo saltado bowl and burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City — two versions of the same dish that sparked an unlikely online debate about Peruvian culinary identity. Franco would also point out that lomo saltado itself — the dish the purists are so eager to protect — is a product of Chinese immigrants bringing the wok and soy sauce to Peru roughly 300 years ago.
"Peruvian is by default fusion," he told me. "So we have all the right to wrap it up in a burrito. " What the online critics were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was defending a dish that was itself once considered inauthentic — and doing so in the name of authenticity.
Since the backlash, Franco says business has been mostly steady — breaking even, which for a concept that requires high volume at a low price point, he considers a good sign. The controversy changed things in ways he didn't expect: people started coming in specifically because of the story, not just the food.
He began putting himself front and center in the brand, regularly making videos on social media about what it's like to run the business, occasionally poking fun at himself and the whole debate. When we visited during the weekday lunch rush, there was a steady line of people waiting to order, many stopping to talk with Franco directly.
In a way, he's answered the authenticity question not with an argument but with a presence — showing up, telling the story, letting the food speak.
"Honoring my food, if that requires pairing lomo saltado with a salad or wrapping it in a tortilla, I have no problem," he said. "I'm not being less authentic. We are evolving in Peru anytime. I have to be authentic on the individual flavor and then be flexible to reach more people to discover our flavors.
"Britney Spears at a movie premiere in 2019. She was charged with misdemeanor DUI on Thursday following her arrest in Ventura County in March. Britney Spears has been charged with a misdemeanor count of driving under the combined influence of alcohol and at least one drug. The criminal complaint does not mention what kind of alcohol or drugs, or how much, she's accused of being under the influence of on the night of her arrest.
Spears was arrested March 4 after California Highway Patrol pulled her over for speeding and driving erratically in her black BMW on the 101 freeway near her home. According to CHP, she appeared to be impaired, took field sobriety tests and was arrested on suspicion of DUI. She was taken to Ventura County jail and released on bail the next morning. About a month after her arrest, Spears' representatives say the singer checked herself into a substance abuse treatment program.
Spears is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, although prosecutors say because it's a misdemeanor charge she won't have to appear in court in person. The Associated Press reports Spears will be offered what's called a"wet reckless" when she appears. It would allow her to plead guilty and get a year of probation, credit for any time served, a required DUI class and some fines and fees.
It's a common offer for defendants who demonstrate that they want to get help and address their problems. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Sunny looks up while being cuddled by Rey as the two sea otters make their first appearance at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. The two otters, paired together as part of the Long Beach Aquarium's surrogacy program that it runs alongside the Monterey Bay Aquarium, now live as mother and daughter. Before last month, a young southern sea otter named Rey would never have imagined she’d be a mother.
That changed when she met Sunny, a pup — about two weeks old — found orphaned and alone on Asilomar State Beach in February. For Rey, Sunny will be the first pup she raises into adulthood. It’s a full-circle moment for her: About two-and-a-half years old, Rey was found stranded herself in July 2023.
As a surrogate mom, she’s teaching her adopted baby everything she needs to know to fend for herself, regardless of her inability to return to the wild. The program, created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the 1990s, was launched in Long Beach in 2024. It pairs maternal-age female otters with young, motherless pups who would otherwise not survive on their own in the wild.
Experts say this quick-forming connection, between that of surrogate-raised otters and their wild offspring, has played a significant role in growing the population found along California’s Central Coast. Now a federally threatened species, California’s southern sea otter population has rebounded to about 3,000. Before last month, a young southern sea otter named Rey would never have imagined she’d be a mother.
That changed when she met Sunny, a pup — about two weeks old — found orphaned and alone on Asilomar State Beach in February. The pairing went off without a hitch. The two otters now live as mother and daughter at the Aquarium of the Pacific. They arrived at the facility last month, paired together as part of the facility’s surrogacy program that it runs alongside the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The program, created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the 1990s, was launched in Long Beach in 2024. It pairs maternal-age female otters with young, motherless pups who would otherwise not survive on their own in the wild. Megan Smylie, the sea otter program manager, says the operation has since rehabilitated and released nine otters into the wild, with the three others expected to leave by the summer.
The aquarium can handle 11 otters at a time, with up to seven in the main tank with rehabilitation pools that can each house two otters. They currently have five otters, including two other females that are preparing for surrogate motherhood. But Sunny and Rey cannot be released into the wild. Experts say both are already too used to being around people and lack the survival instincts to make it on their own in the ocean.
Sunny searches for shrimp in its habitat while two sea otters make their first appearance at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. Instead, the two are destined for motherhood in captivity. For Rey, Sunny will be the first pup she raises into adulthood. It’s a full-circle moment for her: About two-and-a-half years old, Rey was found stranded herself in July 2023.
“Ray has far surpassed my expectations of what I thought was gonna happen,” Smylie said. “She’s fantastic. ” As a surrogate mom, she’s teaching her adopted baby everything she needs to know to fend for herself, regardless of her inability to return to the wild. The two were seen manipulating an imitation crab shell and foraging for food.
Young otters, because of the thickness and buoyancy of their fur, don’t have the strength to get their furry bodies to the bottom of the water tank. Otters have the thickest coat of any mammal, with as many as a million hairs per square inch. The hairs trap air, which acts as insulation and helps keep the otters buoyant. In time, she may teach the pup how to use tools.
Sea otters are known to be crafty creatures, able to use rocks to crack clamshells, take nuts off bolts and open doors on their own. When it’s time to calm down, she’ll groom the pup, and when it’s time for a nap, Rey will pull Sunny to her chest and roll onto her back. The maternal bond in the wild is a strong one, and the pup requires constant attention.
Experts say this quick-forming connection, between that of surrogate-raised otters and their wild offspring, has played a significant role in growing the population found along California’s Central Coast. The animals, which once boasted a population of more than 300,000 along the Northern Pacific Rim from Japan to Baja California, were prized for their fur and hunted down to about 2,000 by the early 19th Century.
Officials say they were thought to have been exterminated until a colony of otters was discovered nearly a decade later. Now a federally threatened species, California’s southern sea otter population has rebounded to about 3,000. Despite efforts to aid their comeback, the species faces a low survival rate for pups and constant threats of parasites, shark attacks and human-caused catastrophes.
This makes the work of every mothering otter like Rey all the more important, as she is tasked with not only providing pups the childhood she never had but ensuring the preservation of her species. And while Sunny may never see the ocean again, aquarium staff hope she can grow into a mom herself, giving the next generation of young pups another shot at life.
Protesters outside Ysabel Jurado's Eagle Rock office speak with CD 14 representative Troy Carbajal about their issues with a development in El Sereno on April 28, 2026. A few dozen protesters rallied outside of Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s Eagle Rock office Tuesday morning in opposition to a 111-unit apartment complex slated to be built on Huntington Drive in El Sereno. , emails from Jurado’s office show a willingness to advance the project despite fierce community opposition.
Now, residents are calling for the Council District 14 representative to meet with the community and requesting impact records from the developer, who they say has been reluctant to produce them publicly. In an emailed statement to The LA Local, a spokesperson for CD 14 said, “Councilmember Jurado believes affordable housing and community voice should not be treated as opposing values.
”A few dozen protesters rallied outside of Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s Eagle Rock office Tuesday morning in opposition to a 111-unit apartment complex slated to be built on Huntington Drive in El Sereno. Residents also say due to the unpermitted demolition at the property, a homeless encampment has grown inside and around the site of the demolished building, inviting drug use, violence and prostitution to the corner of the historic business corridor.
, emails from Jurado’s office show a willingness to advance the project despite fierce community opposition. Now, residents are calling for the Council District 14 representative to meet with the community and requesting impact records from the developer, who they say has been reluctant to produce them publicly. Am abandoned building at the corner of Huntington Drive and Portola Ave is the site of a proposed five-story, 111-unit development.
Residents of the area say the development company is operating outside the rules and creating problems. In an emailed statement to The LA Local, a spokesperson for CD 14 said, “Councilmember Jurado believes affordable housing and community voice should not be treated as opposing values.
” “Our priority is to make sure residents receive accurate information, the site is made safe, the rules are enforced, and the community’s concerns are represented at every point where the City has authority,” the statement said. It also pointed out that under Mayoral Executive Directive 1, the development does not need to go through the usual approval process.
“Because this is a 100% affordable housing project, it qualifies for a by-right approval under the City’s Affordable Housing Incentive Program,” the statement said. “That means if a project meets the basic requirements, it can move forward without a public hearing, and neither City Planning nor the City Council has discretion to delay or deny it.
” The statement added that Jurado’s office has been working since April 2025 to hold the property owner accountable for fixing issues at the site. Protesters along Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock say the issue of ED1 developments isn’t just limited to the Eastside and called for an end to the public safety crisis at the development on Huntington Drive in El Sereno.
Records obtained by the group and reviewed by The LA Local show that the city of Los Angeles opened a code enforcement case against SoLA Impact in April 2025 after a complaint that the building at 5100 E. Huntington Dr. had been left open to the public. City inspectors subsequently cited the South Los Angeles-based developer for unpermitted demolition of the structure.
As of late April 2026, the case remained under investigation, with a third order to comply issued just days ago.
“The idea that a developer would come in, tear something down illegally without permits, not be held accountable for those permits and start a homeless encampment right across the street from a previous one is upsetting to people. It’s upsetting to the community,” organizer Claudette Contreras told The LA Local. Contreras also said the group chose to protest outside the Eagle Rock CD 14 office to show that the issue is city-wide, not just limited to El Sereno.
Protesters outside Ysabel Jurado’s Eagle Rock office speak with CD 14 representative Troy Carbajal about their issues with a development in El Sereno on April 28, 2026. At one point, 10 protestors surrounded Troy Carbajal, a spokesperson for CD 14, outside the office and confronted him about what they see as a public safety crisis near the structure.
“Our community does not need to see that. It’s been an eyesore for months and months, and our children deserve better,” a protestor told Carbajal, who fielded several questions and concerns from the community during the action. Contreras said she’s also concerned that a five-story high-rise will be out of place in the largely single-family home neighborhood, and she said an additional hundred residents may increase tension over parking between neighbors.
“Imagine 111 units, five stories, with 150, 200 additional cars in this area with no parking. It’s kind of outrageous. It also is on the business corridor, so it’s kind of devastating to the small businesses in this area who already have minimal parking on a very busy street,” Contreras said. Am abandoned building at the corner of Huntington Drive and Portola Ave is the site of a proposed five-story, 111-unit development.
Residents of the area say the development company is operating outside the rules and creating problems. El Sereno resident Daniela Bailes said she feels like SoLa Impact and the councilmember’s office should have consulted with neighborhood groups to determine the best uses for the property.
“They have tried to do this under the radar under ED1, to allow for this building to sprout up with zero community input,” Bailes said, referring to Mayor Karen Bass’ Signed in 2022, ED1 was meant to address the housing crisis throughout the city by helping eliminate the red tape that affordable housing developments can get tangled in. In 2024, Bass rolled out an amended version of the directive, limiting where and how some developers build in L.A.
Protesters outside Ysabel Jurado’s Eagle Rock office speak with CD 14 representative Troy Carbajal about their issues with a development in El Sereno on April 28, 2026. Another El Sereno resident, Ezequiel Olvera, considered the developer’s process problematic because it circumvents the legal process. He said the planning department needs to correct the violations on the property.
“If you knock down a building, you need to bring it back to code. You can’t just go in there and demolish a building and say, ‘Let’s red tag this building so that we can get permits so we can start our process,’” Olvera said.
“The city inspector should have them comply with the rules and regulations of the . ” Olvera said Jurado has the authority to hold the developer accountable and a responsibility to listen to the needs of her constituents. El Sereno Neighbors has more than 1,100 signatures of affected residents demanding a public meeting with the councilmember.
“We’ve seen the pattern several times with different council members that put developers first and bring in the community at the last minute to get their input. By then, it’s already too late,” Olvera said, adding that residents are growing impatient with Jurado’s office.
“There should at least be a voice. There should at least be the normalcies that go with building a large development in an area,” Contreras said.
“We’re not even asking for outrageous things. There should be parking and impact and safety reports, those are norms. And everyone is hiding behind ED1. ”
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