Sqirl’s Jessica Koslow on Where to Eat, Sleep, and Play in Silver Lake

In just a few years, Jessica Koslow’s bacon-serving, yet vegan-friendly Sqirl restaurant in L.A.’s Silver Lake district is one of the city’s most talked about dining destinations. It all started in 2011 when she opened an 800-square-foot space where she could sell her homemade jams. As the the lines got longer and longer (everyone wanted a taste of her ricotta-jam toasts), Koslow began expanding her menu into innovative offerings for breakfast and lunch. Now, her cult following can’t seem to get enough of her sorrel bowls and red-flannel hash. Luckily, everyone can do their best to replicate her dishes at home with Koslow’s new cookbook, Everything I Want to Eat: Sqirl and the New California Cooking. The book was shot by acclaimed photographers Claire Cottrell, Jamie Beechum, and Nacho Alegre, and includes some of her friends like actresses Busy Phillips and Nicole Laliberte, actor Dave Franco, producer Lynda Obst, and artists Peter Shire and Isaac Resnikoff.

Here, Koslow shares her favorite spots in Silver Lake — for after you go to Sqirl, of course.

STAY The Rose Hotel, Venice “It’s a really cool hotel in Venice that’s a refurbished motel close to the water. It just has a good vibe and every time my friends come in from New York they are like ‘oh we are staying in Venice at the Rose Hotel.’ It feels like a motel-turned-cool place to stay.”

Chateau Marmont “You feel like you are in a Sofia Coppola movie. You can stay where people like Bob Dylan, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Jim Morrison, and Marilyn Monroe have all stayed. There are people who were like coming off a drug addiction staying there. It’s pretty cool.”

PLAY LA Athletic Club “It has the Mad Men pool and that’s cool.”

Point Dume “Get to the water, put sand in your toes and stay there!”

Griffith Park “Hike Griffith Park and when you hike down, end at Trails, where you can drink lemonade and eat lavender cookies.”

EAT Destroyer “Breakfast and lunch on the west side. Feels like you’re in a Sigur Ros song and you can’t get out. They change their menu all the time, so I like to get whatever the special is that day. Right now they have a beef dish that’s amazing with a salad on top with a brown butter dressing, it’s just bonkers.”

DRINK Marvin “The best wine list in this city. It’s the anti-vibe and all about the wine there.”

The Varnish “Old school cocktails for an old school kind of gal. I like the Gold Rush cocktail or a slow gin fizz.”

Bar Stella “It’s like old school cocktails and cool, Silver Lake vibe.”

SHOP Mohank General “They have ALL my money. They carry lots of brands l love, like Objects Without Meaning, Black Crane, etc. They also have Dries pieces that are very specific. And they have cool lifestyle objects. Don’t go in thinking you are going to get a deal—it’s not cheap, but it’s really well thought out.”

Dream Collective “I really like Dream Collective. I buy their French maid hair clips. They are all enameled, it’s super cool.”

Charlie’s Fixtures “There’s a great place called Charlie’s Fixtures where all the chefs go to get their supplies. You can go as a non-chef and buy things from there too, which is cool.”

ART Hauser & Wirth “Of course, LA has some great museums but I really am all about the galleries and Hauser & Wirth is a great one.”

356 Mission “It’s a really special place run by Gavin Brown and Laura Owens.”

Chateau Shatto “Good for hipster, millennial art.”