For as long as we can remember, there have always been three square meals per day, but it’s rather well-known that on certain days, particularly on Sunday, we are often given the option for “brunch,” that combination of breakfast and lunch that has come to represent a mealtime event, often lasting for hours and with servings of unlimited mimosas, bellinis, or bloody Mary’s. But we didn’t always have these options.
The term “brunch,” used as a way of referring to a meal that isn’t eaten in the morning or afternoon, but rather somewhere in the middle, got its start in England in 1895 believed to have been invented by Guy Beringer. In his article titled, “Brunch: A Plea,” which was published in the London publication “Hunters Weekly,” Beringer not only wrote that this late social breakfast would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers, but he also suggested the addition of alcoholic beverages.
By the following year, brunch had come to America, referenced in an article published in the New Oxford News and Notes for Women as a “fad” of eating between breakfast and lunch. It didn’t quite catch on though, having been a meal enjoyed by the wealthy until the 1930s when it began to be adopted by the middle class. It then expanded beyond and by the 1940s, everyone was partaking in the leisurely meal.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that brunch really hit its stride, becoming a weekend staple offered worldwide. Although it was initiallypromotedas a time- and labor-saving opportunity for women because it meant they’d have one less meal to prepare on what should have been a day of rest, which is one reason why the meal has become so strongly associated with, among other occasions, Mother’s Day. Each May, many dutiful sons and daughters today seek out the best brunch spots to take their moms in every state.
Brunch has become such a popular meal that even many restaurants that don’t serve weekday lunch will fire up their ovens on Sunday (and sometimes also Saturday) morning. Each establishment has a somewhat different take on the weekend meal. Some restaurants offer short, focused menus, heavy on eggs and morning confections like pancakes, waffles, and French toast. Others propose dozens of choices, ranging from omelets and the inevitable eggs Benedict (the heraldic dish of American brunch) to burgers, pasta, and even steak.
Many brunches are all-American, with Southern classics being particularly popular. But of course, other cuisines are often represented on brunch menus, too, from French (croque monsieur, quiche), and Mexican (huevos rancheros, chilaquiles), to Asian (Japanese-style pancakes, kimchee fried rice), and much more. (If brunch isn’t for you, maybe you should check out the best deli in every state.)
While these may not be the only excellent places to grab brunch around the country – there are probably hundreds that deserve to be hailed – they all undeniably deserve a place of honor on 24/7 Tempo’s list of the top brunch destinations in the U.S. (Hopefully none of these establishments will suffer an avocado shortage after a truck carrying 8 tons of the delectable key ingredient in many brunch dishes overturned in San Mateo.)
Here are the top brunch destinations in the U.S.
Balthazar
- Location: New York, New York
- Specialty dishes: Brioche French toast with smoked bacon and eggs Benedict
This convincing replica of — and homage to — a classic Parisian brasserie has been around for more than 20 years and is noted for its solid cooking and its famous house-baked breads and pastries. Conventional brunch fare is offered but for a more serious, more Parisian, experience, there are also things like oysters, escargots, and steak frites.
Butcher’s Union
- Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Specialty dishes: biscuits and gravy with smoked pork and a sunny-side egg
This friendly tavern-style restaurant advertises “Meat & Whiskey,” but offers much more. For brunch, the menu offers a wide range of hearty specialties, including a B.B.E.L.T. sandwich of applewood-smoked bacon, bacon pâté, fried egg, and lettuce and tomato on sourdough bread, and a skillet-baked strawberry rhubarb Dutch pancake with whipped strawberry cream cheese. The full restaurant menu is also available, if you’d prefer to start your day with butter-roasted salmon, bacon-wrapped meatloaf, or something similarly un-brunchy.
Commander’s Palace
- Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
- Specialty dishes: Turtle soup with a splash of sherry, eggs Benedict made with 16-hour barbecued pork shoulder and buttermilk biscuits
Simply one of the best restaurants in America and a longtime New Orleans favorite, Commander’s traces its origins to 1893, and has been in the Brennan family — Crescent City restaurant royalty — since 1974. Its spectacular brunch, accompanied by live jazz, might include such specialties like crispy oyster Sardou salad, wild Louisiana white shrimp with roasted mushrooms and tomatoes, followed by a Creole bread pudding soufflé or pecan pie à la mode for dessert.
Dahlia Lounge
- Location: Seattle, Washington
- Specialty dishes: Green garlic, asparagus, and cheddar omelet with a buttermilk biscuit and parmesan potatoes; vegan herb falafel and cashew-yogurt tzatziki with black lentils, cucumber, and orange
The flagship of Seattle celebrity chef-restaurateur Tom Douglas’s culinary empire, Dahlia Lounge, opened in 1989, is one of the city’s essential restaurants for any meal. The brunch menu is divided into both breakfast and lunch selections. The former includes the Dahlia Workshop granola with honey yogurt, avocado, fresh berries, and mint, while the latter includes Dungeness crab cake with asparagus, shiitakes, toasted almonds, and pea vines.
Engine Room
- Location: Mystic, Connecticut
- Specialty dishes: Benedict with slow-smoked barbecue, local farm eggs, and cornbread; smoked chipotle barbecue pork ribs with creamy Southern slaw and potato salad
Forget Mystic Pizza. This is Mystic bourbon, craft beer, burgers, and brunch, in a former marine engine factory. Like Dahlia Lounge, Engine Room — under the same ownership as the nearby Oyster Club, considered one of Connecticut’s best restaurants — divides its brunch menu into breakfast and lunch sides. There’s a dish of Stonington scallops with grits and a six-minute egg, or for lunch, consider a Cobb salad or a fried fish sandwich.
Fin Point Oyster Bar & Grille
- Location: Boston, Massachusetts
- Specialty dishes: Lobster or smoked salmon Benedict
The combination breakfast and brunch at this bustling restaurant and lounge begins at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings, perfect if you like to get an early start (or are getting home really late). Besides the usual pancake and egg dishes, there is avocado toast with poached eggs, and steak and eggs with hollandaise sauce, among other things.
Fonda San Miguel
- Location: Austin, Texas
- Specialty dishes: Long-cooked pork called cochinita pibil; chilaquiles
Considered one of the best Mexican restaurants in the country, this colorful “interior Mexican” establishment (a phrase Texans use to differentiate the cuisine from Tex-Mex) serves brunch employing an extensive buffet. Ceviche, tamales, huevos rancheros, mole, and many other Mexican specialties are offered, and the dessert selection is more than ample.
Hash Kitchen
- Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
- Specialty dishes: Avocado toast that adds bacon jam, braised pork, crispy leeks, green chili hollandaise, and fried eggs
A “creative a.m. eatery,” Hash Kitchen advertises “Arizona’s largest Bloody Mary bar” and a “crazy brunch menu.” The usual brunch dishes are available, but so is a memorable carnitas hash (Coke-braised pork with potatoes, corn, avocado, cotija cheese, green chili sauce, and corn tortillas).
The Inn at Shelburne Farms
- Location: Shelburne, Vermont
- Specialty dishes: Frittata is filled with butternut squash, roasted cauliflower, caramelized onion, heirloom tomato, and Shelburne Farms Tractor Cheddar and served with home fries and toast
Shelburne Farms is a non-profit working farm plus inn and restaurant. The brunch menu is short, with only nine selections. Food raised or made on the property is featured, though, including the farm’s own cheeses and beef, and the fare is substantial. Possibilities include house-churned-buttermilk pancakes with plum coulis and mascarpone and steel-cut oat risotto with ham, cherry tomatoes, roasted onion, spinach, and Shelburne’s own six-month cheddar, plus toast and a poached egg.
Kitchen No. 324
- Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Specialty dishes: Fried green tomato Benedict; hot chicken biscuit with sunny-side-up egg
The 1923 vintage brick-and-limestone building now occupied by this handsome bakery and cafe was once the headquarters of the now long-defunct Braniff Airlines. Everything served is “handcrafted each day starting at 4 a.m.,” according to the restaurant’s website. The extensive brunch menu has a lot to offer, from entree salads, and sandwiches, to fried chicken pot pie, and “untraditional sides” including sweet potatoes with bacon, goat cheese, and burnt honey.
Lakeside
- Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
- Specialty dishes: Lemon ricotta pancakes; crab cake Benedict
Live Dixieland jazz and the cuisine of noted chef David Walzog are among the attractions at this bright, airy, appropriately lakeside restaurant at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. An array of self-service oysters on the half-shell, bigeye tuna poke, and Alaskan king crab legs, among other things, starts the brunch service here. The made-to-order fare to follow ranges from blackened swordfish with citrus peppers to chargrilled flat iron steak with fries.
Maple & Ash
- Location: Chicago, Illinois
- Specialty dishes: Extravagant brunch buffet, boasting everything from made-to-order omelets to a filet mignon station
Named by Open Table as one of the 100 best restaurants in America for a celebratory dinner, this elegant establishment does a great job with brunch, too. Each table gets a roasted seafood tower to begin, followed by ricotta-truffle agnolotti pasta.
Niu Kitchen
- Location: Miami, Florida
- Specialty dishes: Eggs with truffle potato foam, jamón ibérico, and black truffles
Niu means “nest” in Catalan, and the name seems appropriate for this cozy restaurant full of rustic wood — said by its website to be located “in the heart of downtown Miami. Or somewhere between Dalí’s moustache and Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia.” There’s an undeniable Mediterranean flavor to the brunch offerings, which include a codfish and green onion omelet, and Catalan-style rice with seafood.
The Noble South
- Location: Mobile, Alabama
- Specialty dishes: Sausage balls with bread and butter pickles; pickled shrimp with saltine crackers
You know you’re in the South when the brunch menu includes cornmeal pancakes with cucumber cream cheese and trout roe, and a fried oyster Benedict with smoked ham and hot sauce. The narrow, high-ceilinged dining room is flooded with light at brunchtime.
One Eleven at the Capital
- Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
- Specialty dishes: Blackened ribeye with crawfish coleslaw and cheese grits; smoked gouda mac and cheese with portobellos
Capital Hotel chef Joël Antunes was known for his own highly regarded restaurants in Atlanta, London, and other cities before coming to Little Rock. He changes his menus, including the one for brunch, frequently. Right now, in addition to things like pancakes, a frittata, and eggs Benedict, he offers such items as shrimp and grits and a “Capital Soul Plate” including mixed greens simmered with thick-cut bacon, orange soda, and hot sauce; and truffled chicken tenders.
Red Rooster
- Location: New York, New York
- Specialty dishes: deviled eggs with black-eyed pea mayo, fried capers, and onion jam; Yep! Chicken & Waffle combining a fried chicken leg and a butterscotch waffle with hot maple-chili sauce and pickles
Stylish chef Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef-restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson lives near this Harlem hotspot and has been an animating presence in the community. His menus are mainly Southern, with a personal twist. For brunch, he offers such fare as C & C Salad with shaved cauliflower, corn, watermelon, bacon, peanuts, and berbere (Ethiopian spice mix) vinaigrette; and Mama’s Breakfast Pie with Korean bbq oxtail, creamy potatoes, and baked eggs.
Republique
- Location: Los Angeles, California
- Specialty dishes: Brioche French toast with Vermont maple syrup; breakfast sandwich of pork belly sausage, American cheese, and fried egg
The brunch menu at this handsome, popular restaurant is a study in international breakfast and lunch fare: Belgian waffle, Austrian pancakes, French omelet (with goat cheese), shakshouka (from Israel), pupusas (from El Salvador), kimchi fried rice with beef short rib, Mexican chilaquiles or chorizo sopes. There are also things like granola with farmer’s market fruit.
R’evolution
- Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
- Specialty dishes: “Death by Gumbo,” a gumbo with roasted quail, andouille sausage, and oysters; beer-battered crab beignets
This plush, opulent dining room at the Royal Sonesta Hotel serves modern Cajun and Creole cuisine as imagined by well-known chefs John Folse and Rick Tramonto. Brunch, accompanied by live jazz, features things like shrimp and egg crêpe with tomatoes, fontina, and grilled corn chow-chow; and a Breakfast R’evolution, combining a foie gras and corn muffin, sugar-cured ham, poached eggs, and black truffle hollandaise.
Somerset
- Location: Chicago, Illinois
- Specialty dishes: Smoked beet tartare with cumin yogurt and goat gouda; roasted turkey sandwich with bacon, lettuce, and sundried tomato aïoli
Part of Chicago’s popular Boka Restaurant Group, and occupying a dazzling dining room on the site of the 1920s-era Cedar Hotel, Somerset checks a lot of boxes with its extensive brunch menu – gooey butter coffee cake, passion fruit pop tart, everything bagel with lox, ham, and cheddar omelet, and fried chicken with French toast and sriracha honey.
South City Kitchen
- Location: Atlanta, Georgia
- Specialty dishes: Pan-fried chicken livers with country ham, pimento cheese with pickles and benne seed crackers, she-crab soup
This warmly lit two-level restaurant is Southern all the way. Fried green tomatoes, fried chicken with collard greens (or with a malted buttermilk waffle), smoked brisket Benedict with Creole mustard hollandaise and pickled jalapeños, Charleston gold rice porridge with stewed okra, turnips, spinach, and poached eggs. This is weekend morning comfort food at its best.
Succotash National Harbor
- Location: Oxon Hill, Maryland
- Specialty dishes: Pimento cheeseburger with slab bacon jam; pecan sticky buns, bourbon-pickled jalapeños
Top Chef contestant Ed Lee, who came to prominence cooking in Louisville, now has two branches of a Southern-style restaurant dubbed Succotash, one in Washington, D.C., and this one in the multi-part National Harbor complex, just down the Potomac from the nation’s capital. Succotash’s brunch was voted as one of the 100 best in America by Open Table. The menu includes peel’n’eat shrimp, shrimp and grits, biscuits and gravy, and side dishes include watermelon with fried peanuts, and succotash curry.
The Surfing Pig
- Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
- Specialty dishes: SP Eggs Benedict with grilled taro English muffins, kalua pork, and poached eggs with two hollandaise sauces (truffle and guava); macadamia-nut-crusted fried chicken with chocolate-chip-and-applewood-bacon crispy waffle with coconut glaze
Brunch Hawaiian style, with a focus on pork (as the restaurant’s name might suggest), and other dishes like an omelet with smoked gouda, applewood-smoked bacon, and caramelized bourbon onions; and a flatbread pizza with 12-hour slow-roasted pork, garlic oil, bourbon onions, braised mushrooms, Fresno chiles, and mozzarella, jack, and parmesan cheese.