Things to Do in Burbank

The Nose Wine Bar collects rare and unusual vintages from across the globe, pairing bouquets with a range of hot and cold small plates amid the soft light of flickering candles. A rotating wine menu culls the creations of French, Italian, and Californian vintners and includes three-wine-tasting flights to tempt indecisive diners and three-headed wine critics alike. Rows of gleaming bottles line the walls as creamy leather seating surrounds intimate two- and four-person tables. On Friday and Saturday, live musicians vibrate wineglasses and awaiting eardrums with solo melodies.

The Skirball Cultural Center is a renowned museum, vibrant performing arts center, and prestigious educational institution that is dedicated to sustaining Jewish heritage while welcoming visitors of all ethnic and cultural identities. Members get unlimited year-round access to museum exhibits, including Noah's Ark. The popular interactive gallery inside a massive wooden ark is filled with animal puppets (made from recycled materials) and hours worth of creative, challenging activities for kids of every shoe size, all aimed at teaching the value of community and sustainability without having to live among Himalayan monks for seven years. Children must be accompanied by an adult, and members should call ahead to schedule a timed entry or book online.

What was once the personal collection of Pasadena residents Bob and Arlene Oltman is now a three-story institution with more than 10,000 square feet of gallery space. The Pasadena Museum of California Art features art, architecture, and design from all over the state and aims to explore cultural issues that are unique to California.

As a child in Buenos Aires, Angel Echeverria would sit on the porch of his family home and watch his aunt and uncle dance the tango. Music often spilled into the streets of his neighborhood, where many tango musicians lived. By the time he was a teenager in the early 1960s, Angel began studying the tango himself, and nearly 50 years later he founded The Tango Room Dance Center with Julie Friedgen. Like Angel, Julie grew up watching her parents’ Argentine friends dance tango at parties, and eventually became a ballet and flamenco dancer. Though she didn’t begin learning the tango until 13 years ago, once she started she immediately knew it was the dance to which she would devote the rest of her life.

Not surprisingly, The Tango Room is dedicated to the Argentine style of dance; many of the instructors hail from Argentina and lead classes in traditional, contemporary, waltz, and milonga variations. On Saturday nights the school transforms into El Encuentro—which translates to “the encounter”—a fast-paced dance party modeled after the tango clubs of Buenos Aires. Beyond tango, the school also hosts classes in salsa, belly dance, and R & B line dancing as well as Zumba and bujinkan, a Japanese martial art.

Since its inception in 1979, The Museum of Contemporary Art has devoted itself to post-1940 artwork, a focus that sets it apart from all other Los Angeles museums. Its permanent collection harbors more than 5,000 art objects, encompassing media from video installations and documentary photography to pop art. Works from renowned artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Diane Arbus share gallery space with pieces from up-and-coming artists across the museum’s three facilities.

To complement its permanent collection, the museum hosts rotating temporary exhibits, such as the current Amanda Ross-Ho exhibit, Teeny Tiny Woman, which incorporates architectural elements and large-scale paintings. The museum staff also augments these displays with events, such as their summer concert series in Geffen Plaza, which explores the intersection of music and art like a guitar decoupaged with pages from DaVinci’s journal.

A pumpkin can pep up a pie, transform into a jack-o'-lantern, or fill in for you at work, and each fall, Toluca Lake Pumpkin Patch stocks an ample supply of this versatile squash. The staff also celebrates the harvest season with a maze in which monsters and spooky displays chill visitors' spines. Once fall transforms into winter, the patch turns its attention to selling Christmas trees such as douglas firs and custom wreaths to hang on doors. Regardless of the season, visitors can meet goats, rabbits, and sheep at an onsite petting zoo or pick up a bouquet from Toluca Lake Florist, which has supplied cut flowers for more than 60 years.