Skip downtown LA. It's too far for your limited time.
Although I have never stayed there, I would check out the Culver Hotel in Culver City. It's famous and is in a great area of restaurants with a lively night scene.

Alternatively, come to the beach (especially if you are traveling in the spring or summer). I recommend Hermosa Beach for its on-the-sand hotels and live music nightlife.

Both Culver City and Hermosa are ~ 20 minute cab ride from LAX.

Depends on what you want to do for the night you are here. If you just want a quiet sleep, suggest Holiday Inn Express Hermosa Beach. You'll get credit for IHG requalification (or use your points) and it is a 10 min walk to the beach and 20min walk to Hermosa pier where there are lots of dining options. Very safe area to be walking around at night. Will take no more than 20 mins to get back to LAX at 6 am.

If you want something a bit fancy, look into one of the Kimpton options. Kimpton Palomar is in Westwood, and about 10 min walk from Westwood Blvd where there are lots of dining options as well. Palomar is also a short taxi or uber ride away from Beverly Hills and Mid City where a lot of upscale restaurants are located if you are into those kind of things. Budget 30 min to get back to LAX at 6 am.

I wouldn't trek to Downtown for your purpose. It's too far away and traffic will be unpredictable when you try to return the following morning. Also, The Intercontinental DTLA service has gone downhill (there is a thread on FT for that hotel). I recently stayed there for one night and was not impressed (the ridiculous resort fee and flagrant double charge for valet parking really crossed the line for me)

I'm not sure a Day Use would be appropriate in our situation. We don't land until noon and by the time we clear customs, I don't see us getting to any hotel until after 2:00pm. I believe most day use that I have seen run from 8-9am to 4-5pm and our flight leaves about 10:30pm. We thought about just hanging out in the lounge the entire time because of the carry on and backpacks. I thought an airport hotel probably wouldn't have issue with us having our luggage.

Ok, I misunderstood your original post. You are not trying to book a day use room. You just want to have dinner at a nice hotel restaurant.

I think as long as you are spending money at the hotel, they wouldn't mind you using the shuttle.

Some ideas:
JK Steakhouse at Marriott
https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotel...ws-steakhouse/

Icon at Renaissance
https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotel...-like-a-local/

Daily Grill at Westin
https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotel...irport/dining/

None of them really that special. If you are willing to venture out of the airport, I suggest the following:

Kanpai Japanese - one block north of airport. You can take the LAX-It shuttle to the Taxi/Uber lot and walk from there.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/kanpai-japa...sq=Restaurants

Ayara Thai - two blocks north of the airport. Just another block north from Kanpai.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/ayara-thai-los-angeles-2

The Ramen Joint - across the street from Ayara - same walking directions
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-ramen-j...sq=Restaurants

In-N-Out - first place north of airport. Take the LAX-It shuttle then walk.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/in-n-out-bu...n-n-out+Burger

All these places are short walk from the LAX-It parking lot so perfectly doable with light carryon luggage. The walk from/to LAX will be good exercise after long haul flight.

I like this idea. There's a lot of new stuff and walkable food options around the Culver Hotel too. NZJuniorDoc can go to Culver Hotel, check in and drop bags, look around/grab coffee, take Expo line to Santa Monica, walk along beach / see sunset, then head back to Culver City for eats/drinks.
Then if NZJuniorDoc is still is a OWE, they can leave hotel around 630am, arrive at LAX by 7am, use AA's flagship first check-in and request a queue hop to the front of the security line. Plenty of time to make the flight. NZJuniorDoc could also start 30mins earlier and have a sit-down breakfast at the QF F lounge before the JFK flight. I presume they want to make it to NYC for dinner, else they would've chosen a later LAX-JFK flight.

Thank you! That is what I'm looking for. Some option that I can check out. We are going to be tired as our schedule is going to be crazy travel for a couple of days. We managed to snag some of the last Delta Skymiles deals flying from Mexico City to Sydney. So we leave Tucson the day before and have to fly to Atlanta, Atlanta to Mexico City, spend the night there and then fly Mexico City to LAX and layover for 10 hours and then LAX to Sydney. Besides the 10 hours at LAX we have 4 hours at ATL. The lounges are okay, but I'm not sure that I want to spend 14 hours in them in two days. It is a whole lot of traveling and I think it will be nice to get out of the airport scene even if it is for only a few hours before the long flight.
Again.... Thank you!

There are some additional suggestions in this Eater Los Angeles article:I'll add Top Chef Winner Brooke Williamson's Playa Provisions to Eater's list.

I would venture south either to The Point in El Segundo https://thepointsb.com/ or to Manhattan Beach Mall which is across the street from the point and lots of great restaurants and shops. https://www.shopmanhattanvillage.com/ There is a hotel across from the Point and the Village. https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/lax...nhattan-beach/. You could drop off your bags and head across the street.
Or if you don't want to be far inland maybe take a taxi to downtown Manhattan Beach and go with https://mb.shadehotel.com/ and then you are surrounded by cute shops and restaurants and 2 blocks up from the beach/pier. You can also go a few miles further south and do this with one of the hotels in Hermosa Beach or Redondo Beach. I assume that you are looking for a place to sleep as well as eat and kill time. If you want some ambience along with the basic sleep/eat, I would do downtown MB. If not then I would do the Belmar. Both places are about 20 minutes from LAX...maybe only 15 at that early hour.

thanks for all the suggestions!

will definitely have a look at culver city options. travelling solo and with mostly carry on so I'm fairly flexible. Also, the main airport hotel block prices aren't exactly the cheapest either!

plus, landing at 230pm, if I'm out by 4pm, it would be nice to stretch legs and see some things and eat something decent that isn't airport hotel food!

Is 5 hours layover sufficient time 5-10pm to head out to the beach for dinner then back to LAX?

Yes, maybe.....but.....the better question is whether it would be worth the risk.
If you are traveling in the winter, the sun will have set by the time you get to the beach and, frankly, there is not much to see in the dark. A restaurant at the beach would not be much better than a restaurant anywhere (unless you fancy the food or the entertainment).
If, however, your travel is in the summer, you will eat during daylight and may even see a beautiful sunset.
Also, there are few actual beach-front dinner restaurants. A reservation will be necessary for most of them.
Note that 5pm - 7pm is a very busy traffic time in LA.
Personally, I would not count on it, especially if 5pm is your arrival time and 7pm is your departure. Just getting from your seat in the plane to LAXit, where you can catch a cab/Uber, will take 30 minutes.

Depends on which beach you want to go but definitely doable. A lot of dining at so called Beach towns are actually not next to the beach so just keep that in mind. There is also plenty of good dining options just outside the airport in Westchester (north) or El Segundo (south) so you don't need to go far if the goal is to have a decent meal.

I would chance it. MB is your closest bet and lots of great places right downtown but some have waits and some take a rez. Also, MB but inland are the many good restaurants at MB mall (Manhattan Village) which is about 5 minutes less travel time. Safer still is picking El Segundo--either downtown or at the Point.
When you say 5-10...are you saying land at 5pm or you will be out of the airport & in a cab at 5pm? The same with the return...do you need to just be pulling up to lax at 10pm or actually at your gate at 10pm?
There really are very few decent places to eat in the area surrounding lax (at the lax hotels) so if you want nice to eat, then head to ES or MB. There is also 2 places that I love in Playa del Rey that which is actually closer to LAX than the other spots.
Very casual dining (but good!) would be Playa Provisions (I think it has already been mentioned) https://www.playaprovisions.com/
Fancier and really good Italian is right across the street from Provisions. Caffe Pinguini https://caffepinguini.com/

We just realized that the Sunday that we will be traveling is Easter Sunday. I missed that completely because it falls on March 31st. :eek: So all of these ideas may be for nothing. I've been so busy planning things, I missed this completely. I'm not sure how Easter Sunday will affect reservations. I may call a couple of hotels nearby and ask if the restaurants will be holding normal menus and dining during this time.

What to do on a layover at LAX?
 

Hi all. We are doing SYD-LAX-MIA with QF & AA next month. We land on the re-timed QF11 at 1320 and then don't depart until 2235 on AA24. We are down the back in the QF bus and both are separate tickets too (so expecting a luggage re-check either in TBIT or T4 Flagship entry). No Global Entry.

I am P1/OWE and MrsChooms is WP/OWE with QF and we know we will have access to QF F and AA Flagship lounges (even AS if we wanted to go for a walk). Three year old Master Chooms is also coming on this visit. Given this, we were thinking of grabbing an Uber Black and heading up to Santa Monica pier for a bit to stretch legs and get some fresh air between flights. Other option is In n Out.

Or do we not risk evening rush traffic and stay at the airport? Of course also depends on how late QF11 is...

Should we get out of the airport or hang around? I suspect we could kill and hour or so with showers and a meal post-QF11... any advice appreciated!