Building a Better Brunch

Themed dining, staff-invented creations and out-of-the-ordinary customization options help kick up in-terest for servers and guests.

By Christine LaFave, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/9/2008

Rocky Top Hospitality's custom-made-omelet station and ... ... create-your-own-pancake station with assorted batters, fillings and toppings. RECIPE: Banana Bread Pudding

For the (possibly) bleary-eyed chefs and servers charged with dishing up delectable weekend morning fare, brunch is often a daypart of duty, not of desire. “I think anybody that tells you that their chefs like dealing with brunch is lying,” says Dean Ogan, owner of Raleigh, N.C.-based multiconcept operator Rocky Top Hospitality.

Independent and hotel-based restaurants that have built their reputation on inventive cuisine and signature dishes at dinner often still find themselves having to trot out a mostly untinkered-with eggs Benedict at brunch and serve it with a smile to especially hungry, barely caffeinated patrons. It’s easy to fall into the trap of menuing the same safe Sunday standards and delivering less-than-exemplary service because there is less competition for consumers’ dollars in the morning. Smart operations, however, recognize in brunch an opportunity to introduce the restaurant to new consumers and provide an agreeable—even fun—change of pace for staff.

In Cambridge, Mass., Restaurant Dante Executive Chef Dante de Magistris decided last year that he wanted to enliven brunch service by incorporating a “unique, kitschy” theme into the meal. The result, launched in February, is the Inferno Brunch.

“It’s almost a little too obvious,” de Magistris says. Customers in the college town, however, have found no fault with the classic-literature-literate Sunday-morning event, a $20 three-course progression from Heaven (breakfast pastries and breads for the table) to Purgatory (a first course of fruit, soup, pasta or salad) to Hell (a selection of indulgent entrees).

“I think everyone really gets into it,” de Magistris adds. “I think the theme does help drive business.”

Among the menu’s “Hell” selections are polenta pancakes with salted-butter gelato and Vermont maple syrup; a four-egg frittata with roasted asparagus, goat cheese and wild mushrooms; and, for a $10 surcharge, a lobster PLT that features roasted lobster, pancetta, arugula, tomato and smoked-pepper aioli. “I wake up on a Sunday morning and just am in the mood for something rich and more exciting, somewhere different than just a diner to go to,” he says.

Definite conversation-starters for the restaurant include a spicy foie gras omelet, with spicy red-pepper jam topping an omelet folded around seared foie gras, and the Dante’s Kitchen Sink Bloody Mary, a drink/meal that boasts nearly 20 kinds of pickled vegetables. The latter item is one of five Bloody Mary variations, each developed by a different member of the staff, on the 9 Cocktails of Hell menu.

Giving staff the chance to participate in menu development can boost server buy-in at brunch, lifting the mood during service and creating a dining experience that is that much more pleasant for everyone, de Magistris notes. “A lot of the servers, they work late on a Saturday night, and they don’t want to come in early to work the brunch,” he says. “But now that we’re doing something a little more exciting, the servers are so excited about it and the bartenders are so excited about it. … It’s worth their while.”

Injecting a sense of playfulness while also taking the menupart seriously is integral to brunch service at Rocky Top Hospitality restaurants, Ogan says. “There’s so few places that do a really good brunch,” he comments, adding that the buffet-style brunch in the four of seven Rocky Top restaurants regularly are open Sunday mornings “is a pretty big deal and is one of [the] busiest shifts of the week.”

Beyond custom-made-omelet stations, the restaurants offer create-your-own-pancake stations with assorted batters, fillings and toppings. A list of suggested recipes provides a jumping-off point, but diners can customize as much as they like. Ogan’s favorite signature creation is the s’mores pancake—a chocolate-chip pancake topped with graham crackers and house-made marshmallow, with the marshmallow blow-torched in front of guests.

A surprising hit? Jelly-bean pancakes, with jelly beans folded into the batter. “It actually was successful,” he says. “It’s fun to see the jelly beans get all gooey.”

This month, Rocky Top hopes to capitalize on its brunch success with a Brunch 101 cooking class. The $50 class, which will take place at the operator’s Red Room Tapas Lounge in Raleigh, will offer instruction on making omelets, crab cakes, stuffed French toast, berry crepes and brunch cocktails—and in the process expose participants to the types of treats they can find during brunch at Rocky Top restaurants.

Brunch is an attractive daypart to promote, Ogan notes. “I think with the recent state of the economy being perceived as a little shaky … that value perception [of an all-you-can-eat brunch] has gone over extremely well,” he says.

Salad of burrata, prosciutto di Parma, sweet melon, baby arugula and candied pecans served at Murano (below).

Kristi Ritchey, executive chef at Murano in Los Angeles, knows that some cost-conscious younger diners use brunch as a more-budget-friendly way to try out her restaurant. “Our crowd on Sundays honestly is younger than what most people think of for brunch,” says the 27-year-old chef. “[Brunch] allows them to get into the restaurant without feeling uncomfortable.”

A greater interest among young people in cuisine and in fine-dining experiences has helped spur this brunch interest, Ritchey says. “The younger crowd [is] starting to appreciate food more,” she says, and a fun, thoughtfully constructed brunch menu can present an attractive entry point for these diners to the restaurant.

“Brunch used to be the thing you had to do, the family obligation,” she says. Now, she notes, “I have five people who are probably [in their] early 20s who are at my bar almost every Sunday.”

A new spring brunch menu highlights “brunch desserts,” including vanilla oatmeal brûlée with bananas and a roasted-banana-and-bittersweet-chocolate pancake with maple syrup. “I think that at brunch in particular that sweet tooth is there, but they don’t necessarily want to have dessert,” she says, so à la carte brunch-dessert entrees offer “the best of both worlds.”

Ritchey also has found success menuing such seasonal savory selections as spring-pea agnolotti with brown butter, pea tendrils and shaved-ricotta salad, and a simple but elegant salad of burrata, prosciutto di Parma, sweet melon, baby arugula and candied pecans. Though she sees a place for fixed-price brunch buffets, Ritchey says that Murano’s clientele appreciates being able to decide exactly how much they want to spend.

Above all, the operators say, consistency—in menu, in service, in the experience created—is key for building a loyal brunch following. Ritchey carries over to the brunch menu some of her most popular dinner appetizers, including the burrata salad, fritto misto and a panzanella salad, as a way both to offer familiar favorites to returning diners and to create a seamless transition between the dayparts. “Those are things I like to highlight all the time because it’s part of what makes this restaurant,” she says. With this approach, then, brunch service seems like a natural extension of a restaurant’s repertoire—rather than a less-ambitious experiment in capturing morning business.