BEST COFFEE IN LA?

On my last morning in LA my mom took me to a new coffee shop on Montana Ave. that reportedly sold some of the best coffee in LA. I hadn't had time to go to my beloved Cafe Balcony for a cappuccino, so I was looking foward to trying out Caffe Luxxe and getting my coffee fix in.

When we walked in, I noticed that the space is very sleek and chic. There was a small line and it grew after we'd gotten the coffee. They have a very large espresso machine and they were using Mazzer grinders (a good sign). They had two guys making coffee and one person ringing people up and it was a little disorganized, but fine. There was also a small case of pastries, as you can see in the pic below, but not much that interested me.
So I put in an order for a cappuccino for myself and a coffee for my mom. As I watched them work, I found it a bit odd that one person worked on the espresso while another was doing the foam. (Normally the barista completes a drink by themselves). I'm not sure if that was standard protocol or if they were trying to save time, but it may have effected the resulting drink. I prefer that the barista take their time to make an excellent coffee. So here's my cappuccino below. It looks pretty nice. Much better than most places out there. And they do latte art on every one of their drinks, even for the takeout cups, so that's a nice touch. But you can see that the foam isn't perfect. It's not smooth and mirror-like, which it should be. As for the espresso, I'm not sure what they're using, but it had a bitter note, even with the sugar that I'd added. I'm still a bigger fan of illy.

Here's my mom's coffee. As you can see, it's not normal drip coffee. It's two shots of espresso. I don't think they even have drip coffee on the menu, which is quite Italian. I do respect that.I also purchased this bag of mini muffins to munch on. (Allright, it's also cause they were cute). They were too sweet for my taste. I think the prices were a little higher than usual. (About what I charge). And despite the use of latte art, I still like my funky, comfy Cafe Balcony more. I'll need to make a bigger effort to get there the next time I'm in town.