While we’re certain you’ve got a lot of eating ahead of you—hello, holidays—we’re also certain you’ll still be craving fabulous brunches and an escape from the malls and gift-shopping madness. Give yourself a present with these five brand new brunches this season. After all, you’ve been good this year. You’ve earned it.
Maple
Strolling through 150 acres of some of L.A.’s most stunning grounds can work up an appetite. Thankfully, Descanso Gardens’ picturesque, weekend-only Maple restaurant just launched a new brunch menu under its new executive chef, Philip Mack, who’s blending Southern and Mexican flavors like nobody’s business: maple-smoked baby back ribs with chili-maple glaze, cornbread pudding, sunny eggs and potatoes; Johnny cakes with hickory-smoked brisket, poached eggs, jalapeño jam and a BBQ maple syrup; and mole omelets with grilled vegetables, smoky braised greens, coloradito mole, toasted sesame seeds and potatoes. This should make for some solid fuel before—or a great reward after—you visit the gardens.
Parched? There’s a brief menu of brunch cocktails and wines, in case your journey’s also worked up a thirst. (Pro tip: Stay until it gets dark and visit Enchanted: Forest of Light, the botanical garden’s light-up holiday installation.)
Saturdays and Sundays, 9am to 2pm.
Native
Leave it to Top Chef’s ambitious Nyesha Arrington to launch her new restaurant with brunch service from the get-go. At Native in Santa Monica, find an intriguing menu of globally-inspired brunch items, from the familiar (jumbo lump crab Benedict with hollandaise and watercress) to the uncommon (Tehachapi grain porridge with vegetable cracklings and thyme). There are kimchi latkes with house crème fraîche; coconut brown butter pancakes with vanilla and sea salt; and lamb skewers with cilantro and piri piri. In short, this sounds like everything we want to eat always, but especially at brunch.
Saturdays and Sundays, 10am to 2:30pm.
Beauty & Essex
Our advice? Dine in that charming, brick-walled courtyard at Beauty & Essex or on the patio when you swing by for brunch. The sprawling space within the Dream Hollywood hotel is moody and lovely, but it’s outdoors—while sipping one of B&E’s many new brunch cocktails—that you really want to be.
The Tao Group spot opened earlier this year, but recently launched a brunch service that includes a raw bar offering poke, oysters, ceviches and chilled lobster; a lengthy list of genre-bending dishes such as chicken-and-waffle tacos, fried green tomatoes with pork belly pastrami, and an avocado latke Benedict; an entire menu of brunch desserts; and, of course, brunch cocktails, such as the Cinnamon Toast Crunk (Hennessey, almond milk and vanilla) or the Green with Envy (cucumber-infused vodka, St. Germain, cilantro and jalapeño).
Sundays only, 11am to 3pm.
Melody
Keep your eye on Virgil Village, a neighborhood that seems to be growing in clout by the week. New “lazy French” wine bar Melody, just across from Sqirl, is one of the latest newcomers. In addition to dinner service—with breakfast and lunch on their way—this sunny, casual spot also offers weekend brunch, with perfect, light-leaning fare to enjoy in its bright-and-airy space or on its large patio, set to a soundtrack of vinyl records. Expect dishes such as a croque-madame-wich with kimchi creamed spinach; baked egg and cauliflower gratin with kimchi béchamel, raclette and crispy onions; croissant French toast; and of course opt for a glass or a bottle—it is a wine bar, after all. Wines skew toward light- or medium-bodied, by small producers, with a few natural and all-organic labels, to boot.
Saturdays and Sundays, 11am to 4pm.
Beelman’s
Downtown gastropub Beelman’s recently flipped to an all-vegan, Asian-inspired menu, and with that comes a brand new brunch. Now you can find a brief but entirely mouthwatering plant-based menu that features dishes such as the Harissa Explains it All, with fried grits, seared tofu, togarashi, roasted potatoes, rainbow carrots, kale and a house-made harissa; the breakfast burrito, packed with tater tots, Soyrizo, smoked tofu, pinto beans, avocado-lime salsa and gochujang crema; and L.A.’s official dish, avocado toast—here made with hummus, alfalfa sprouts, pickled radish and hemp seeds.
Saturdays from noon to 3pm and Sundays from 10am to 3pm.