Restaurants in downtown Salt Lake City are banking on brunch

Brunch lovers rejoice: That delightful meal — that speaks equally to breakfast and lunch imbibers with plenty of breakfast sweets while also satisfying the savory lunch fans — is in abundance in downtown Salt Lake City this fall.

Restaurants up and down the redeveloping downtown corridor are now offering a bevy of brunch options on weekends and even some on weekdays to satiate sweet and savory cravings.

So let’s explore a few of downtown’s most popular brunch spots, with traditional offerings such as omelets and French toast, as well as a buffet of unusual dishes to keep you intrigued.

Omelets

While the spelling of omelet, or omelette, is your preference, it’s a true staple of any breakfast and brunch menu. And a good omelet is a lot harder to make than the simple ingredients suggest, as eggs can be temperamental and turn rubbery with too much heat.

• If you’re looking for a great representation of a French omelette, head to Adelaide Urban Brasserie (131 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City, in the Le Meridien hotel) for the Lorraine omelette, carefully layered with Cochon bacon, caramelized onions and Gruyere cheese. “Cochon” is French for “pig,” and New Orleans — which Adelaide credits with much of its culinary inspiration — made the term famous in the United States. That lovely bacon, along with the melted cheese and savory onions, adds weight and texture to the otherwise light and airy offering. It’s served with crispy potatoes and your choice of toast for a filling morning meal.

• At The Daily — which recently reopened in the 222 building on Main (at 222 S. Main, naturally) after an extended pandemic closure — their three-egg smoked cheddar omelet wins top presentation marks, as it’s elevated with a bloom of earthy roasted mushrooms and a kicky herb salad for brightness.

• Downtown’s newest fine-dining establishment, Urban Hill (510 S. 300 West), recently added weekend brunch to the menu, and takes the opportunity to nod to Executive Chef Nick Zocco’s New Mexico upbringing. His southwest omelet is packed with roasted peppers, onions, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, avocado, and green and red chile. You can add ham, crab or lobster to this behemoth, to keep you going well into the evening.

Breakfast sandwiches

It’s too bad that the breakfast sandwich doesn’t have a flashier name, because this brunch staple is actually an impressive combination of breakfast favorites melded into one handheld meal that’s even better than the sum of its parts. Successful chefs need to have their egg, breakfast meat and supporting carb on point in order to wow diners.

• In Gateway, Flanker Kitchen & Sporting Club boasted a traditional option on the handhelds menu with folded scrambled eggs, melted American cheese and plenty of crispy bacon on a flaky bun. Of late, they’ve also introduced the Green Eggs & Ham sammy with scrambled egg whites dotted with crunchy broccolini and an arugula pesto, plus ham and parmesan on a toasted hoagie roll with a green salad. It’s a healthy option but also still ideal for NFL and college football cheering all weekend.

• The Daily’s breakfast sandwich is perfectly assembled for maximum portability from its ground-floor coffee shop location. It’s also a deal. Starting at just $5 for soft scrambled eggs and melted American cheese, you can add avocado and bacon strips for even more sandwich goodness.

Croque madame, croque monsieur

These classic French sandwiches are very popular elsewhere, but not often seen in Utah. Both served warm, they typically include French ham and Gruyère cheese on hearty slices of bread that are drenched in béchamel. A croque madame is simply a croque monsieur with a poached or fried egg on top.

• While the croque madame has been on the brunch menu at Bambara (202 S. Main St., in the Hotel Monaco) for well over a decade, it’s still a visual and taste treat. Made with sourdough bread and local ham, the Gruyère cheese is from the Comté region of France with notes of butter and hazelnut. It’s pan fried and then covered with a fried egg and béchamel sauce.

• The newcomer croque monsieur makes its debut on the seven-day-a-week brunch menu at Adelaide. The decadent entrée features shaved Black Forest ham and Gruyère on rustic slices of bread covered in Chef Jackie Siao’s creative Boursin béchamel. For good measure, the dish comes with crispy fries that are great for dipping in any extra sauce.

Doughnuts

Doughnuts are a food category all their own — spawning global franchises and local favorites. But when a doughnut is served by a restaurant, you’ll get a lot more than just a fried ring.

• Take Adelaide’s ricotta doughnut. These monstrous doughnut holes are lightly fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar, then served on a pool of citrusy lemon curd with crunchy caramelized pecans. It’s a perfect brunch appetizer to share around the table.

• At Franklin Ave. Cocktails & Kitchen (231 S. Edison St.), chocolate doughnuts might be your favorite brunch dessert. The doughnuts themselves are made with potatoes for a heftier weight, and seasoned with cardamom and sea salt. Each ball has a crispy exterior that’s topped with pastry cream and cocoa nibs for some intriguing textures.

French toast

French toast is breakfast comfort-food perfection. Take a slice of bread or other carb, dip it in an egg wash and then fry it in a pan. But these two downtown restaurants have stepped French toast up a notch and taken this dish to delicious new heights on their brunch menus.

• At Franklin Ave., Executive Chef and Bourbon Group Partner Matt Crandall slices up lemon pound cake as the base for the French toast, and then tops it with powdered sugar and fresh strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, with a side of warm maple syrup.

• Monarca (268 S. State St.), which serves more traditional Mexican fare during the week, recently began weekend brunch service. Alongside their huervos rancheros and chilaquiles, you’ll find them putting a spin on the Monte Cristo with their Concha French toast. Concha is a shell-shaped Mexican sweet bread, or pan dulce, that’s dipped in an egg wash and pan-fried before being dusted with powdered sugar and garnished with strawberries and blackberries.

Bread pudding

Perhaps not the brunch dessert you would immediately think of, downtown Salt Lake City has some excellent bread pudding choices for your end-of-brunch sweet.

• Made exceedingly popular in Utah by Little America (500 S. Main) and then Grand America (555 S. Main), the hotels have been serving their famous bread pudding with warm rum sauce for decades. With slight variations between the two hotels, you can find Grand America’s offering on the Sunday brunch buffet at Laurel Brasserie & Bar. It’s a holdover from the original Garden Café and features day-old croissants soaked in custard and then baked. Little America Executive Chef Santiago Ramos shared the recipe this summer.

• Urban Hill is dishing out Cinnamon Toast Crunch bread pudding to close out brunch on a sweet note. This more traditional presentation of spongy goodness is topped with crispy cinnamon crumbles and anchored in orange zest crème anglaise.