Gold Dig #6

Sqirl is a tiny minimalist space. A few white counters and blackboard menus on white tile walls. There’s also a small patio seating area, but it wasn’t open when we went. Everything in the place looks clean and fresh. Owner Jessica Koslow is one of the biggest names on the LA food scene right now. Sqirl is one of the go-to lunch spots on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list.

The Dish

Sqirl is known for its homemade jams and brioche toasts. The ingredients are seasonal and often locally sourced. While this is great for sustainability, it also means that the food just tastes really fresh. We tried a couple toasts and jams. The grain bowls are also really popular. We didn’t try any of the bowls because we had decided to do a Gold Digging restaurant hop and had already eaten at Sapp Coffee Shop (check out that post too!) prior to heading to Sqirl. If I was just doing Sqirl for lunch, I don’t think that the toasts alone would have been enough, so I’d definitely try a bowl and a toast.

Famed Ricotta Toast

You get to choose a jam for your Famed Ricotta Toast. We chose the strawberry rose geranium. It was a hard decision. So we also got a side of the olallieberry apricot. These are some seriously big toasts. That plate is closer to dinner plate than dessert plate size. There is a reason the ricotta toast is “famed” and everyone talks about the jams. The toast and ricotta are light and fluffy. The jam adds sweetness, but more importantly nicely potent fruit flavor. I had a hard time deciding which jam I liked better.

Chocolate & Hazelnut Toast

This brioche toast is officially listed on the menu as Guittard Chocolate & Hazelnut Butter & Maldon Salt. That is a mouthful (to say and to eat haha)! See that pool of chocolate? It jiggled when I moved the plate. It wasn’t as sweet as I expected based on how it looked. Instead it was very rich, and had somewhat the same mouth-drying effect as putting a spoon of peanut butter in your mouth. I generally love dark chocolate, but I actually wished this was a touch sweeter. So I tried adding a bit of the jam – homemade PB&J… not bad!

Want to watch us “jam” toasts into our faces? Check out the video here!