WHY For an L.A. take on a Japanese maid café, with very good, carefully presented matcha and milk teas and lovely tea-friendly sandwiches, Japanese dishes and pastries, served with performance-art flair.

WHAT Royal/T provides the most singular tea experience you can possibly imagine, blending underground Japanese geek culture with English high-tea conventions, served by waitresses done up in French maids’ costumes (a wee bit creepy in that Lolita way), set in the midst of a 10,000-square-foot collection of contemporary Japanese art. It’s the strange and fascinating vision of collector/owner Susan Hancock, and you really must experience it.

WHO Artists, collectors, tea ritualists and the curious.