The best gift shops in Los Angeles

This cheerful Echo Park boutique stocks a carefully curated collection of cards, stationery products, and home and fashion items, selected with an emphasis on local and California-based designers. Owner Tamara Houghten literally created the shop to help people find “special, unique and affordable” gifts for friends and family. Come in to pick up a card, and you'll probably end up grabbing a cute notebook, clever coffee table book and trendy enamel pin to go with it. 

For your literary or L.A.–loving friends, look no further for the perfect gift. Head to the historic Los Angeles Central Library and explore this shop where an assortment of cards, pens, notebooks and other stationery supplies can be found in bright colors and emblazoned with fun designs with a bookish bent. Proceeds from purchases here go toward the Library Foundation, so you’re also helping support enrichment programs to keep the written word alive.

Synonymous with midcentury design, Heath Ceramics is a California institution for home décor. Established by Edith Heath—whose works are coveted pieces of museums’ collections including LACMA and MoMA—the L.A. branch offers iconic pieces for every room in the house, perfect for your minimalist friend with exquisite taste.

It may look unassuming from the outside, but Lundeen’s in downtown Culver City is a hidden gem. It’s been beloved by locals since Kathryn Lundeen opened the shop in 2008 after noticing a need for a local gift shop. You’ll find jewelry, kids’ toys, L.A.-centric trinkets, glassware, paper goods from Rifle Paper Co., wall decor, greeting cards, candles, diffusers and books. I’ve personally bought a first-birthday present here, a congratulatory gift for a new job, and a patterned kettle that brightens up my kitchen. And it’s a store where I’d be thrilled to receive literally anything inside as a gift myself. For the holidays, they have quirky ornaments for your tree, cute wrapping paper and bags—but they’ll also gift-wrap your finds, so that’s one more thing you can tick off your list.

Part cookbook store, part lifestyle shop, Now Serving is one serious destination for boutique kitchenware, international food magazines and cookbooks representing more than 20 countries. Curated and owned by a former chef for Wolfgang Puck, this shop within Far East Plaza draws upon more than a decade of kitchen experience to curate some truly special wares.

This isn't your average gift shop. Fine-art tomes, stationery and home decor pieces like frames, candles and notebooks share the shelves with decorative embroidered pillows, leather totes, Indigo-dyed pouches and more. The Abbot Kinney boutique, owned by California native Erinn Berkson, emodies the essence of California-cool with a nod to its eclectic, boho surrounds. Drop in to find the perfect gift for a friend or a little one—there’s also a selection of cute options for kids and babies, from wooden teether rings to a California-map onesie.

If the Last Bookstore Downtown were really our last bookstore, we'd be in good shape. Currently housed in what used to be an old bank building (complete with marble columns and giant doors), the store first began in a loft apartment and has since expanded to include a record shop, coffee bar and “Labyrinth” mezzanine level solely dedicated to $1 books. It's now the largest independent bookstore in Southern California. Not up for a trek Downtown? You’re in luck: The owners recently opened the Last Bookstore Studio City, a Zen option filled with 500,000 books for Valley dwellers to browse.

If you think it’s hard to pass up keepsakes and decor with Frida or Basquiat in a typical museum shop, wait until you walk into one with Totoro on everything. You’re bound to find something in the store that the movie buffs in your life will love, whether it tugs at childhood nostalgia or their inner cinephile (Pedro Almodóvar socks, anyone?). You’ll find entire sections of the store dedicated to current exhibitions—check out the Brain Dead Studios x The Matrix collection inspired by “Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures”—plus some merch inspired by the museum itself and the Oscars. 

P.F. Candle Co.—first founded by Kristen Pumphrey as an Etsy shop in 2008—specializes in rustic-chic soy-wax candles (they’re also vegan, cruelty-free, and phthalate-free) whose signature amber glass jars you’ve definitely seen at any cool friend’s place. Bestselling scents include teakwood and tobacco, Golden Coast, bergamot shiso and Los Angeles—which smells like redwood, lime, jasmine and yarrow. But they’re constantly expanding their offerings, with seasonal scents like smoky cinnamon special or vanilla and ghost pepper, as well as collaborations like P.F. Candle Co. x Peanuts, with cute labels starring Snoopy. But all of the independently owned brand’s products are still developed, produced, tested and packed right here in L.A. Their products can be found in stores all across the city, but we suggest going straight to the source and visiting the Echo Park flagship for the best selection.

Beloved local patisserie Valerie Confections’ headquarters can be found near the border of Glendale and Burbank. Find boxes of eponymous pastry chef Valerie Gordon’s gourmet chocolates, bars, barks, petit fours and more inside the 5,000-square-foot space; you can also preorder pies and cakes, or stop by for coffee and a pastry. This time of year, picking up some peppermint bark, eggnog petit fours or holiday truffles for a sweet gift is sure to score you points with anyone.