My Favorite Spot for Toast in Toast Town Is Actually a Pizza Place
This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.
Every toast in Los Angeles lives in the shadow of the one from Sqirl. You know, that cartoonishly perfect brioche spackled with ricotta and a pool of seasonal jam? Who can rival it?
Funny you should ask. Because the last time I was in L.A., I found new toasts to obsess over, and they all come from Hail Mary, a funky little pizza parlor in Atwater Village. Pies make up the majority of chef (and Gjelina alum) David Wilcox’s menu, but the breakfast toasts are so well considered, they’re not to be missed.
There’s the coriander-cured salmon with marinated cucumbers and a thick schmear of fatty cream cheese. There’s the cloud-like creamed ricotta toast, speckled with sesame seeds and drizzled with honey, atop hearty whole wheat slices. There’s the thick sourdough slathered with ricotta, some seasonal chunky fruit jam, and pistachio butter, which is made with organic nuts from Santa Barbara Pistachio Company. “They’re the most expensive ingredient we have at the restaurant!” Wilcox told me over the phone. “But I love them so much that I wanted to turn them into the star of the show.”
All that, and none of the crazy, Sqirl-level waits? All hail Hail Mary.
Go there: Hail Mary
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
