Sqirl grows up
Plus, vintage menus on display, chilaquiles worth traveling for, and more
Are cocktails the new wine? Despite reports that younger diners aren’t drinking, I’m pleased to see more new restaurants going all-in on cocktails, the single easiest way for them to make money (and for me to feel like I’m getting the full dining-out experience). As of this Friday, all of the Last Word Hospitality restaurants in L.A. (Found Oyster, Barra Santos, Rasarumah, Queen’s, Hermon’s) will have full liquor licenses—a win that Last Word partner Holly Fox says they hope will counter sluggish wine sales. “I think the natural wine trend has broken a lot of trust for consumers about what actually tastes good (and not like kombucha or farm) and folks are less willing to take risks on unfamiliar wines, especially as prices keep rising,” she says. “Liquor is straightforward and you know what you’re getting before it hits the table.” Similarly, Sqirl’s Jessica Koslow delayed her long-in-the-works dinner plans (more on those in a minute) in part to pursue the ability to serve liquor, though she received a wine and beer license in 2023. Of course, the city doesn’t make it easy for operators to acquire said license—a story we’ve covered in detail—but developments like the Restaurant Beverage Program have eased the path for many, and hopefully, more to come.
Pop-ups are nothing new, but there was once a time that they primarily referred to up-and-coming chefs testing the waters before pursuing a more traditional brick-and-mortar path. We now seem to be experiencing a mini boom of the opposite: operators who are pushed out of their restaurants due to extenuating circumstances are now popping up at other restaurants in the liminal time between closing and figuring out what’s next. Cases in point: Horses temporarily setting up shop at Café Triste; Jikoni popping up Bridgetown Roti and Offhand Wine Bar following the closure of Citizen’s Market; and, details pending, but I’m very curious to see where Junya Yamasaki from the recently shuttered Yess lands for his “Fuck Yess” pop-up, teased in The New Yorker. Will nearly-departed Taix pop up at another restaurant after they close next month? They’ll never be able to capture the magic of that room, but squint and I can almost see it.
Public libraries are national treasures, and I was delighted to spend a little time with L.A. Central Library 2025 Creator in Residence Tien Nguyen’s ongoing vintage menu exhibit, both online and in person at the Pio Pico-Koreatown library branch. The menu collection currently on display in K-Town is petite but fascinating, including a 40-year-old Beverly Soon Tofu menu handwritten on a dried gourd (!), plus original menus (on paper) from historic K-Town institutions like the Ambassador Hotel and the Brown Derby. There are more videos and oral histories available online, but a quick trip to the library followed by a round of sticky-sweet Korean fried chicken at The Prince is a perfect Saturday, as far as I’m concerned.
We briefly mentioned this in the last edition, but Virgil Village icon Sqirl is, after many delays, really, truly, opening for dinner on Feb 19th (and reservations are now live). This is a big deal: It’s hard to overstate the influence Sqirl has had on L.A. dining (and what people outside of L.A. think of as “L.A. dining”). When owner Jessica Koslow opened Sqirl in 2012, she helped pioneer a vision of California cuisine that felt both true to its roots (highly seasonal, ingredient-driven) and refreshingly new: youthful, breezy, experimental in both spirit and technique. And it was delivered in the accessible daytime format, counter-ordered in a casual space with sidewalk seating.
Sqirl has weathered significant controversy in a gentrifying (some might argue, fully gentrified) neighborhood that now includes several buzzy bars and restaurants, but it has consistently remained one of the Eastside’s most popular restaurants. It is also, for all intents and purposes, synonymous with breakfast and lunch.
So what does it mean for Sqirl to do dinner, in this location, at this moment in time?
