For most of the last decade Sqirl was a daytime proposition and nothing else: a queue down Virgil Avenue, a slab of toast under an inch of ricotta and house jam, and everybody out by mid-afternoon. That is no longer the whole story. The same small room now runs an evening service on most nights, with the lights down, lamps on the tables and a short menu of proper bistro cooking. The breakfast is still the breakfast. There is simply a second, quieter version of the place that most people have not registered exists.
A restaurant that has added a dinner service is the easiest booking in the neighbourhood for about a year. Ask Karpo which kitchens near you are open in the evening now.
The toast is still the toast
The signature item is a thick slice of brioche, griddled, spread with ricotta and loaded with house-made jam. It is a simple thing that became famous because the jam is genuinely exceptional rather than because the concept is clever.
The jams are made in-house in small batches from seasonal fruit, which means the version on the toast changes through the year. Asking what is on it today is a real question rather than a formality.
The rest of the daytime menu is built around the same idea — vegetables and grains treated seriously, with the sorrel-dressed rice bowl as the other item people come back for. It is Californian cooking in the most literal sense.
Daytime service runs from eight in the morning until late afternoon every day. The queue is much shorter than it was at the peak of the hype, which makes now a better time to go than five years ago.
What the evening service actually is
Dinner starts in the early evening and is a different kitchen output entirely — produce-driven bistro plates rather than anything resembling the breakfast menu. It is a short menu that moves with what is available.
The room is transformed by turning the lights off. Low lamps on each table, dark walls and close seating make a space that reads as bright and casual by day into something considerably more atmospheric.
There is a proper drinks list now, including small martinis, which tells you most of what you need to know about the intended mood. It is a neighbourhood dinner rather than an occasion restaurant.
Not every night
Dinner runs most evenings but not all of them. At least one midweek day is daytime-only, with the kitchen closing in the late afternoon and not reopening, and the closing hour on the nights it does run varies between earlier and later in the week.
This is the single thing worth checking before you plan an evening around it. A restaurant that has recently added a service is also the most likely to adjust that service, and posted hours drift.
The upside of a newly added dinner is availability. The daytime reputation has not transferred to the evening yet, which means a table at eight on a weeknight is a realistic prospect in a city where that is increasingly rare.
Booking behaviour is worth a note because the two services work differently. Daytime is a walk-in and always has been: you queue, you order, you find a seat. The evening takes reservations, which is a change in how the room operates rather than a formality, and it means the awkward middle case is turning up at seven expecting to be seated the way you would at eleven in the morning. On a quiet weeknight you will probably be fine. On a Friday you will probably not, and the difference between the two is a thirty-second check.
Virgil Village
The neighbourhood sits between Silver Lake, East Hollywood and Los Feliz and has spent the last decade slowly acquiring the kind of small businesses that follow a well-known restaurant into a residential area.
It is genuinely walkable for a few blocks in each direction, with a handful of shops, bars and counters within a short stroll. That is not something you can say about most of the addresses in this part of Los Angeles.
Parking is street parking on residential blocks with restrictions that are signed and enforced, and it gets tight at peak daytime service. Reading the sign properly before walking away is the standard advice and it applies here.
The wider stretch of Virgil and Sunset within a ten-minute walk has quietly become one of the better eating corridors on the east side, and it is worth knowing about as a fallback rather than a consolation. There are taquerias, a couple of long-running bars and several newer counters within a few blocks, none of which require a queue or a booking. If you arrive and the wait is unreasonable, or you have landed on the day the kitchen shuts early, walking two blocks in almost any direction solves the problem rather than ending the evening.
Going now rather than then
The place went through a very public difficult period several years ago and a lot of the writing about it still online dates from that time. Whatever anyone concluded then, the operation running today is a different proposition with a different offer.
The practical version of that is simple: the queue is manageable, the jam is still made in-house, and there is now a dinner service that did not exist before. Those are the facts that affect whether you should go this week.
The best single visit is probably the one nobody makes, which is the evening. It is the same room, the same kitchen and the same ingredients, with none of the daytime crowd and a menu almost nobody has tried yet.
Practical notes
Daytime runs 8am to late afternoon every day. The queue is far shorter than it used to be.
The ricotta toast uses house-made seasonal jam — ask what is on it today, it changes.
Dinner is a separate evening service with a short produce-led menu, not the breakfast food.
Dinner does not run every night. At least one midweek day is daytime-only — check first.
Closing times in the evening vary by night, earlier at the start of the week.
Evening tables are still easy to get. The daytime reputation has not carried over yet.
Street parking on signed residential blocks. It gets tight during daytime service.
Tags: #restaurantsopennearme #sqirl #virgilvillage #silverlake #losangeles #la #breakfast #ricottatoast #lafood #dinner #eastside #laeats #jam
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Ask Karpo first
Restaurants that have just added an evening service are the easiest tables in town for a while. Ask Karpo which kitchens near you are open tonight and which ones you can still walk into.
