What type of Sunday bruncher are you? Pick the description that best fits you and then decide where to dine.
Classic
You’re a greasy spoon, breakfast-served-all-day kind of morning person. You want diner coffee with shelf-stable creamer and the ability to choose between a perfect cheese omelet with a side of goetta or a double-decker club.
The Echo
Hyde Park | 3510 Edwards Road, echo-hydepark.com
The bar-top seating, vintage swivel chairs and vinyl booths keeps the atmosphere rooted in the 1950s, while The Echo’s mix of 20-year regulars and hungover college students brings multiple generations together.
“It’s very representative of Cincinnati as a whole,” says owner Stephanie Surgeon. “You see every kind of person in here. It really is like a microcosm of the city.”
After 22 years of ownership (the original Echo was opened as a sandwich shop by Louise Schwartz in 1945), Surgeon still can’t pinpoint her personal favorite off the menu. It’s a cross between Steph’s Sampler — two eggs, two hotcakes, bacon, sausage and your choice of toast — or the Flying Pig Sandwich, which is ham, bacon and Swiss cheese between two slices of French toast. The customer favorite at the Echo, however, is easier to pinpoint.
“When it comes to brunch, I’d say the house favorite is the Hot Mess, which is appropriately placed in the ‘Hangover Helper’ section of our menu,” Surgeon says. The dish consists of home fries, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and cheddar cheese beneath a layer of sausage gravy.
Tucker’s
OTR | 1637 Vine St., facebook.com/tuckersrestaurantotr
A Cincinnati staple for more than 70 years, Tucker’s was recently named one of the Midwest’s 38 essential eateries by Eater.com. That’s because the urban diner has long withstood the test of time, effectively adapting to Over-the-Rhine’s evolving population while surviving adversity — like the 2015 kitchen fire that shut the restaurant down for more than a year.
Joe Tucker mans the grill while wife Carla oversees the front-of-the-house (Joe’s parents, E.G. and Maynie Tucker, opened Tucker’s in 1946), serving classic comfort food and diner dishes with a twist, from scratch-made biscuits and gravy to brioche-bun French toast and a BLT with veggie bacon. Both locals and tourists alike have fallen for Tucker’s nostalgic take on brunch.
“We have people that come here at least once a day, sometimes twice a day,” Carla says. “We have weekend regulars. We’ve got regulars that have been coming for 50 years.”
Other Classics:
- Sugar n’ Spice (4381 Reading Road, Paddock Hills, sugar-n-spice-restaurant.com)
- Price Hill Chili (4920 Glenway Ave., Price Hill, pricehillchili.com)
- Parkside Café (1026 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills, parksidecafe.info)
Hip
Is brunch a social activity for you? Perhaps you have a brunch outfit? Can you use the meal name as a verb: “You wanna brunch tomorrow?” Head to a place to see and be seen.
Quan Hapa
OTR | 1331 Vine St., quanhapa.com
While highly regarded for its ramen and okonomiyaki, Over-the-Rhine’s Quan Hapa is drawing significant interest for its Asian spin on brunch. Served 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, the menu centers on executive chef Mapi De Veyra’s take on congee, essentially rice porridge and a popular breakfast choice in East Asia.
De Veyra’s chicken congee includes crumbled chicken meatballs, green onions, fried shallots, cilantro, sesame oil and sourdough toast from Sixteen Bricks. The vegan congee follows a similar recipe, replacing the chicken meatballs with shitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms and crushed cashews.
The congee has previously drifted on and off the menu, but due to a recent rise in demand, it’s here to stay. “Everybody has been asking for it, so we had to put it back on the menu,” De Veyra says.
Alongside the congee, Quan Hapa offers a staple to most Hawaiian and Asian breakfast tables — Spam, eggs and rice — plus brunch cocktails, like a Hapa Mary, which combines Thai basil-infused vodka, tomato, Sriracha and kimchi. They say you can’t beat the classics, but Quan Hapa puts that mantra to the test.
Mecca OTR
OTR | 1429 Walnut St., facebook.com/meccaotr
Mecca OTR parked a food trailer in its giant patio this summer — The BOX — serving $2 hamburgers. And they’ve taken that super streamlined approach to Sunday morning, when managers and siblings Kelsey and Ryan Iker serve mid-morning cocktails and breakfast sliders to a collection of established regulars there to debrief the week (and the night before).
Mecca’s breakfast burger features a housemade patty topped with a fried egg and American cheese between two English muffins, while bartender Kelsey offers her take on a bloody mary and Orange Julius. The Orange Julius is a concoction of booze, orange juice and coconut milk, while the bloody mary is made of vodka, tomato juice and hot sauce dressed with a celery stick, olive and Mexican candy rim.
“We’re not trying to do anything crazy,” Kelsey says. “We’re just taking everything back to the basics.”
Other Hip Spots:
- Cheapside Café (326 E. Eighth St., Downtown, facebook.com/cheapsidecincinnati)
- Commonwealth Bistro (621 Main St., Covington, commonwealthbistro.com)
- Sleepy Bee Café (3098 Madison Road, Oakley, sleepybeecafe.com)
Boozy
Are you still hungover (or possibly drunk) from the night before? Are you looking to get drunk now? If liquid brunch is more up your alley than chewing your food, it’s a boozy brunch you’re after.
Wunderbar
Covington | 1132 Lee St., facebook.com/wunderbar.covington.3
Wunderbar provides a safe haven to those interested in hangover remedies who can’t quite remember their karaoke performance from the night before. A German-inspired bar and eatery, Wunderbar offers $3 mimosas and $4 bloody marys alongside a rotating brunch menu, which ranges from classics like corned beef hash and eggs to their hard-shell breakfast tacos.
“Typically we use brunch to venture out into new ideas and try some different things,” says owner Nathan Chambers.
The menu has also included eggs benedict, omelets and a countryman breakfast, which he describes as “every breakfast meat you could imagine all piled onto a plate.”
Regardless of what’s coming off the griddle, Chambers operates with the hungover close to his heart.
“Like at most brunches, everyone’s pretty much hungover,” he says of the typical Wunderbar brunch crowd.
Nation Kitchen & Bar
Pendleton | 1200 Broadway St., nationkitchenandbar.com
Nation’s bottomless brunch would surely cause Carrie Nation — the famous temperance warrior for whom the bar is named — to roll over in her grave. For just $28, guests can grab endless mimosas, screwdrivers and bloody “carries” alongside any brunch dish.
“I think our atmosphere is the one that kind of divides us from the rest,” says executive chef Kayla Robison. “It’s like a bar, a Saturday night bar at 10 o’clock in the morning. It’s a lot of fun.”
Nation’s Hangover Burger, a personal favorite of Robison, features a burger patty, goetta, ham, cheddar cheese, onion, tomato and a fried egg between two English muffins (it can be made vegetarian on request).
Following a similar theme, the Brunch Wrap Supreme calls on nearly every imaginable brunch favorite. Invented by a very hungover sous chef, it includes smoked sausage, bacon, pepper jack cheese, queso, scrambled eggs, tater tots and jalapeño relish pressed inside a tortilla.
Other Boozy Breakfasts:
- Revolution Rotisserie (1106 Main St., OTR, revolutionrotisserie.com) has $20 bottomless mimosas
- Chapter Mount Adams (940 Pavilion St., Mount Adams, mtadamschapter.com) has $18 bottomless mimosas
- BrewRiver GastroPub (2062 Riverside Drive, East End, brewrivergastropub.com) has $20 bottomless mimosas
Chic
Why should your dining expectations for Sunday morning differ from those you have for Saturday night? You are looking for quality, creativity and craft cocktails, you classy broad.
Coppin’s Restaurant & Bar
Covington | 638 Madison Ave., hotelcovington.com/dining
Self-described as a “food and beverage operation with rooms on top,” Coppin’s combines excellent, locally inspired dishes with well-prepared cocktails to create a chic brunch experience inside Hotel Covington every weekend.
For those with a sweet tooth, Coppin’s French toast comes topped with bananas foster, walnuts and cinnamon. For something more savory, general manager Billy Grise is a fan of the McCoppin’s, a breakfast sandwich featuring chorizo, egg, arugula and pimentadew cheese. “I think our biscuits and gravy are also a huge highlight,” Grise says. “The biscuits are made in house, and just like the McCoppin’s, the English muffins are made in house. I just love our biscuits. They’re awesome.”
Stepping outside of standard brunch offerings, the menu also includes a cauliflower sandwich with ranch tzatziki and buffalo sauce on Sixteen Bricks quinoa toast, and a pot of mussels made with Braxton Brewing Company’s Storm cream ale and local Napoleon Ridge Farms chorizo, served with a side of grilled bread.
Coppin’s also just introduced large format cocktails — enough for four people to enjoy.
Senate Blue Ash
Blue Ash | 1100 Summit Place Drive, senateblueash.com
An extension of the Over-the-Rhine location, Senate in Blue Ash brings a novel Sunday brunch menu to the ’burbs. In addition to a rotating seasonal selection that currently consists of candy apple pancakes, Senate’s brunch menu includes the fan-favorite Goetta Superstar, a breakfast sandwich stuffed with goetta, scrambled eggs, American cheese and avocado served on toasted brioche with breakfast potatoes. The eatery’s Hipster Toast is a combination of avocado and fried eggs on top of Blue Oven Bakery’s Bad Boy bread.
Senate’s Blue Ash location also attends to the those in search of an alcohol-inspired Sunday morning, offering bottomless mimosas at $20, bloody marys and a specialty cocktail: The Reese Witherspoon. While the actress’ claim to fame is Legally Blonde, Senate’s take on Reese includes peanut butter bourbon, vanilla simple syrup, Reese’s Puffs cereal milk and coffee bitters.
Other Chic Spots:
- French Crust Café (1801 Elm St., Findlay Market, frenchcrust.com)
- Metropole (609 Walnut St., Downtown, metropoleonwalnut.com)
- Otto’s (521 Main St., Covington, ottosonmain.com)
This article appears in Oct 11-18, 2017.
