Welcome back to Good Taste, your weekly Bay Area food tip sheet! Today, you’ll find personal recommendations for fun places to have breakfast and brunch in San Francisco. I’ve enjoyed each of these spots over the past few months.
Fiorella has three locations in San Francisco, but you can only get brunch at Fiorella Sunset (1240 Ninth Ave.), which offers service on Saturday and Sunday, and you have to appreciate a menu that mingles breakfast plates with eat-too-fast-good salads, pizza, pasta, and gelato. I was charmed to see that the eggs-your-way, sausage, and hash brown cake combo is named after Dennis Richmond, the beloved retired anchorman who the Bay Area grew up watching on Channel 2. He’s one of the stars of Flavor Paper’s awesome Bay Area Toile created by the Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone that hangs in the Fiorella restaurants.
Automat (1801 McAllister) offers both daytime and dinner service Tuesday through Saturday. The restaurant, which took over the former Green Chile Kitchen space, opens at 8am and starts serving hot food at 9am, so you can get a hot fried chicken sandwich if you’re craving lunch and your friend can go all breakfast-y with pastries, breakfast cookies, or candycap mushroom custard brick toast. See more specific dishes from the menus at Fiorella Sunset and Automat on my Instagram feed.
I’ve been suggesting Abacá (2700 Jones) as a dinner option to friends for over six months, and the Filipino-California restaurant added brunch service earlier this year that’s also well worth eating. Chef Francis Ang has a larger background as a pastry chef, so you can order sweet and savory items with the same confidence, like I did on a recent visit by choosing a chorizo burger with incredible wedge potatoes and a Tikoy pandan waffle for my party. Given that it’s in a hotel, there’s also a daily breakfast menu that includes outstanding pastries like a truffle cheese ensaymada, an ube-macapuno ensaymada, and bibingka with Brie and salted egg.
If you’re looking for a quiet vegan breakfast Thursday through Monday, check out Beach’n (4300 Judah) for several preparations of crispy hash brown cakes, French toast, bagels, and breakfast burritos. Walk it off on nearby Ocean Beach, or check out sister business Judahlicious up the street for a superfood smoothie.
Hilda and Jesse (701 Union) in North Beach is open on Monday nights with a brunch-for-dinner menu that consists of a three-course tasting for $45 and à la carte options that are hard to resist. This is fun for a special occasion, like a birthday, new job, or just being alive. Read more about brunch for dinner at Hilda and Jesse.
As I was wrapping up this installment of Good Taste, I learned some brunch news worth sharing: My friends at Bluestem Restaurant & Market (One Yerba Buena Lane) now offer a brunch menu Tuesday through Saturday from 9am to 9 pm that includes mimosas and Bloody Marys, plus dishes like a pork belly Benedict, shakshuka, and a griddled BEC in a bao (Breakfast BAOnini).
Keep this crazy food party going at Tamara’s site California Eating.
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