Brawny Brunches
The midday meal that bridges dayparts builds business
By Virginia Gerst, Special to R&I -- Restaurants & Institutions, 3/1/2004
Brunch is big business. Customers crave the leisurely blend of breakfast and lunch, and restaurants of all levels are happy to serve them. The most successful operations move beyond eggs Benedict and cheese blintzes, and provide service as warm as grandmother’s kitchen.
“A place like ours is homespun, and it stands out because it feels different,” says Robert Siegmann, owner of 5-year-old Icebox Café, just off Miami Beach’s busy Ocean Boulevard.
On Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. locals of all ages and tourists in the know fill the restaurant’s 70 seats many times over, tucking into what Siegmann describes as “a stylized version of Midwestern food.”
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The menu changes each weekend, but it always lists fresh-squeezed juices, including such offbeat varieties as watermelon, honeydew, and celery, and two crowd-pleasing main courses: The Mess—scrambled eggs, ham, caramelized onions and roasted potatoes, served with fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits, and The Egg Box—scrambled eggs topped with melted cheese over a homemade biscuit and sausage.
Pancakes so sizable they fill an 8-inch plate also are big sellers. Chef Donald Wharton creates them in a kaleidoscope of flavors, from bananas Foster and coconut-pineapple to pumpkin-pecan.
The Original Gourmet Brunch in Hyannis, Mass., also offers dishes you’re not likely to find elsewhere. A peanut-butter-and-jelly omelet is just one of the options on the 100-item menu.
Joe Cotellessa, a former Boston construction worker, attended cooking school at night so he could buy the restaurant in 1984. It is a family operation. Cotellessa’s wife, Anne, worked there until she died last year and their son, John, is part of the management team.
The Original Gourmet Brunch is open from 7 a.m. to 1:30 or 2 p.m. daily year-round. Quiches and soups are prepared fresh each morning; everything else is cooked to order. A menu note reminds customers that patience is a virtue.
The Gourmet Sampler—a slice of quiche paired with a selection of cheese and fruit—is a signature dish. Other popular selections include Brunch Supreme, an artichoke heart in puff pastry topped with ham, a poached egg and cheese sauce, sprinkled with crab meat; eggs Benedict “Brunch Style”—an English muffin, ham, and poached egg topped with cheese sauce; and Conquistador Scramble (three eggs, sautéed onions, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs topped with cheese sauce and served on a platter).
Lines of success
What Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Cafe in Seattle’s
Belltown neighborhood does especially well are rustic European-style
breads, pastries and cardamom-scented coffee cakes.
“The bakery is the heart of our brunch,” reports Andrew Cleary, manager of the 10-year-old cafe and a collaborator on Mackie’s recently published “Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook: Favorite Breads, Pastries, Sweets and Savories” (Dimensions, 2003).
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Brunch customers can sample the morning pastry basket, brimming with a variety of fresh-baked goods, or settle down to brioche French toast with seasonal fresh fruit, whipped butter and apple-pork sausage, or crêpes filled with ripe Washington peaches and sweetened ricotta cheese. A fried-egg sandwich—prepared on grilled potato bread, with two eggs, Muenster cheese, roasted red onions and spicy tomato sauce—is a major seller. So is hot coffee, made from organic beans that are roasted in Seattle specifically for the cafe.
On weekends, lines for tables begin forming 30 minutes before Macrina’s 9 a.m. opening, and the hours of operation stretch to 3 p.m. “We can’t get any busier without expanding,” says Cleary.
The Cheesecake Factory is expanding, and Sunday brunch is one reason for the success of its 73 restaurants in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
“Brunch is one of our busiest meal times,” says Howard Gordon, senior vice president of the Calabasas, Calif.-based chain. “We accommodate everyone from kids to grandparents.”
The Cheesecake Factory tempts all ages with six dishes added to the regular menu for its once-a-week brunch. These include three versions of eggs Benedict, a super-sized Belgian waffle, a smoked-salmon plate, and a French toast Napoleon—three slices of grilled brioche stacked with fruits, nuts and chantilly cream.
Kids’ brunch items feature a small order of French toast with bacon and strawberries, but not much else is small at The Cheesecake Factory. “We promote sharing,” says Gordon. “We serve very generous portions, and one person is not going to finish.”
Training teams
Tustin, Calif.-based Mimi’s Cafe promotes friendly
service, and that is a draw to all diners, including those
who come
for brunch, says Robert Schwarz, director of
menu development for the chain of 78 New Orleans-themed
restaurants. All servers
attend training courses to ensure that they
know how to treat customers.
Brunch items are part of the daily breakfast/lunch menu, and include eggs Florentine, pain perdu (French toast stuffed with orange marmalade and cream cheese), Cajun sausage and eggs, and other dishes laced with Louisiana flavors.
Schwarz believes the look of the restaurants also contributes to the crowds. “We put a lot into décor,” he says. “We are very upscale for breakfast.”
By design, Home restaurant in New York City is unimposing in every way. Chef-owner David Page and his wife, Barbara Shinn, serve their versions of American comfort food at their 55-seat Greenwich Village restaurant. “I like brunch because it is a little more casual than other meals,” says Page.
Home’s 18-item brunch menu includes not only omelets, but steak and eggs, garlic potato cakes, buttermilk pancakes with marmalade, and even grilled trout.
“It’s a soup-to-nuts menu,” says Page. “It gives you options across the board and that makes it appealing.”
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Diners have few options at Park 75 in the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta. Executive Chef Kevin Hickey prepares an 11- to 13-course prix-fixe brunch each Sunday.
“It’s a seasonal menu, and the dishes change each week,” says Four Seasons spokeswoman Marsha Middleton of the $36 meal. “The only consistent thing is hot, fresh doughnuts.”
Many items have a Southern flavor. Hickey, who has worked for Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts for 10 years in restaurants around the world, arrived in Atlanta several years ago, and has since developed a taste for the flavors of the region.
A recent menu included salmon rillettes, French green-lentil soup, pecan-crusted Carolina mountain trout, roast-beef tenderloin on eggless béarnaise sauce, and pumpkin soufflé torte.
“Customers make an occasion of our brunch,” says Middleton. “It has become a favorite pastime for Atlantans.”
The same can be said for brunch itself. This weekend ritual is a pastime all across the nation.
Brunch is for sipping too
Brunch is more than the food on the plate; it’s often the beverage in the glass as well, and smart operators are adding fizz to their brunch menus with creative libations. Here is a sampling.
Bartenders at Icebox Café in Miami Beach, Fla., blend fruit elixirs with sparkling water, champagne or sparkling cider and give the resulting drinks Greek names. These include the Aphrodite—a combination of passion fruit and mango juices garnished with raspberries—and the Hades—sake, cranberry juice and a dash of orange liqueur.
The Cheesecake Factory perks up diners with Irish coffee made with Irish whiskey and topped with whipped cream, as well as a signature Bellini—champagne, peaches and liqueur.
Absinthe Brasserie & Bar in San Francisco, which specializes in retro cocktails, offers its brunch crowd Buck’s Fizz—fresh orange juice, grenadine and champagne—and a drink with the don’t-say-we-didn’t-warn-you name Death in the Afternoon. It’s shot full of licorice-flavored liqueur and champagne.
Home in New York City’s Greenwich Village makes diners feel comfortable with the Home Cocktail—hot apple cider, rum and cinnamon. It also offers the Leslie—house-made hot cocoa, peppermint schnapps and whipped cream—and Kentucky Coffee, which blends coffee, bourbon, whipped cream and Chef David Page’s own bourbon-soaked cherries.
Buffets 101
Brunch is not limited to restaurants. College and university foodservice departments step up to the plate with lavish weekend buffets.
“We even get faculty and staff coming and paying cash,” says Stu Orefice, director of foodservice at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., where brunch is served on weekends from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in all residential colleges and the graduate dining hall.
Some 2,500 people line up for the buffets each day, placing orders at the omelet, waffle, bagel and carved meat stations, and stopping by for a helping of peel-and-eat shrimp, plus one or more of many possible desserts.
Brunch is included in the student meal plan, but those who pay as they go hand over approximately $8.
“The menu is so popular, we sell it to our reunion groups,” says Orefice. “Graduates come back and say, ‘I want that brunch I had when I was a student.’”
Students at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., are encouraged to make their food preferences known, according to Michael Delcambre, executive chef of the Bon Appétit Management Co.-operated account, and they are not shy. To meet requests, the weekend brunch now includes an Asian station, with dishes from all regions of Southeast Asia.
“We have a diverse student population, and we have constant interaction with them,” says Delcambre. “We even have Mongolian-style dishes and Korean food.”
The brunch line also features a roast station, where whole roasted chickens, marinated legs of lamb or roast beef are carved on order, a create-your-own omelet station and such student pleasers as chocolate-chip pancakes.
At the University of South Carolina in Spartanburg, the Sodexho USA-run campus foodservice introduced a Southern brunch in September 2003.
“Our menu was created for the client,” says Jim Shecter, foodservices general manager. “The school felt it was a big tradition down here to have a fried-chicken, macaroni-and-cheese-style Sunday brunch.”
The buffet, which also features collard greens, cornbread and a variety of pies, has been a hit with the undergraduates. Approximately 50% of the student body attends, up from 20% to 25% before the new menu was implemented.
All together
Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, fosters town-and-gown goodwill by inviting the entire community of some 10,000 to brunch one Sunday a month throughout the academic year. A mix of approximately 1,000 students and locals share the meal.
“Customers go through a buffet line, but once they get their food, we wait on them just like any restaurant in town,” says James Bloemendaal, general manager of the Sodexho USA-managed account.
Diners choose from fresh pastries, soups, carved meat, fresh fruit, breakfast foods and fajitas. Many choices change each month. The meal is part of the student food service, but community members pay $8.75.
“It’s a nice way to get local residents involved with the university,” says Bloemendaal. “And it gives students the chance to interact with people from town. It ends up being a real family-type atmosphere.”
Virginia Gerst is a Chicago-based freelance writer.
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