Best brunch restaurants in Los Angeles: Eggs

Chef and owner Suzanne Goin is best known for her rustic rendition of California farm fresh cuisine with European influences. Her Brentwood restaurant is an upscale, more sophisticated dinner place that also serves weekend brunch with a proper roster of morning egg preparations. The morning cast-iron skillet of baked eggs involves a bed of semi-mashed white beans and two eggs that sit under a topping of shredded Parmesan and crisped, fried breadcrumbs and diced prosciutto. It's Suzanne Goin's flavorful version of tavern cooking.

It’s hard to look past the irresistible pastries at Karen and Quinn Hatfield’s new bakery/café, but the casual daytime menu offers chef and ingredient-driven plates of refined New American fare. It’s also where, even during colder months, breakfast and lunch crowds clamor for outdoor tables on the lofty patio, noshing on salads, sandwiches and, yes, baked goods. Weekend mornings, try pork belly and Russet potato hash, nestled underneath glossy fried over-easy eggs artfully presented with a scattering of steamed spinach. With such a tasty (and hearty) way to start your day, you may not have room for dessert.

Silver Lake’s warm and unpretentious Café Stella salutes France by way of California with bistro offerings like oeufs á la coque—that's soft boiled eggs en Français—and Croque Madame. But brunch-goers should consider another egg option, via North Africa, simply named Moroccan Eggs—a couple baked eggs rest at the bottom of a cast-iron skillet topped with a cumin-tomato sauce and two substantial Merguez sausage links and wedges of warm pita topped with za’atar.

You've likely never dreamed of eating brunch in a post office, but that’s the experience at chef David Lefevre’s hip, rustic Manhattan Beach restaurant. MB Post—the restaurant takes its name from its former resident, the Manhattan Beach Post Office—delivers a daily changing menu that echos the farm-to-table California mantra. Steak is grilled over white oak and layered with a single poached egg, broccolini and red chimichurri sauce. A slew of communal tables make for an especially social brunch, with a batch of seasonal cocktails at the ready.

No restaurant in Los Angeles plates quite like Farmshop, an eatery and marketplace from Jeffrey Cerciello, a longtime Thomas Keller Group alum. Think beauty in simplicity—every dish meticulously executed in the restaurant’s open kitchen looks like a glossy magazine spread. But there’s no airbrushing here, just great care in sourcing ingredients—always of the highest quality that speak for themselves in both color and taste—and labor-intensive execution. Case in point: Pastrami and eggs—tender slices of housemade pastrami accompany perfect rounds of sunny-side up eggs, a scattering of cauliflower florets, pole beans, Windrose Farm apples and homemade green tomato ketchup.

Superba Snack Bar, a joint project from chef Jason Neroni and Pitfire Pizza’s co-founder Paul Hibler, perfectly fits the definition of Venice cool. The restaurant’s retro-modern aesthetic is pronounced in both space and plate where Neroni crafts farm fresh Mediterranean fare with California sensibility. Familiar flavors are updated with artful plating. For brunch, creamy sunny-side up duck egg oozes brilliant orange yolk over crisp, cubed patatas Bravas and smokey Romesco sauce. Flanked with strips of jamon Serrano and sprinkled with chopped scallions, beachside dining never looked so chic.

Perhaps the most epic brunch offered in Los Angeles from perhaps the most famed chef in the country and beyond, this $68-per-person meal served at chef Wolfgang Puck’s namesake restaurant in the Hotel Bel-Air is a feast. Brunch, served on the property’s lush indoor/outdoor patio, begins with a flight of artfully arranged fruit and pastries, followed by a three-course prix-fixe meal that could begin with crab cakes and end with seasonal sorbet or a tart. As an entrée, choose the soft, French-style omelet. Though simple in name, the egg creation is surprisingly complex. A delicate hand transforms eggs into an ethereally soft and creamy mass, folded with Gruyere, applewood smoked bacon and butter-sauteed wild mushrooms. Pair with a Bellini for a sublime Sunday morning.

If you’ve ever brunched in this city, you’ve likely waited in line for the all-day breakfast served everyday until 3pm at Square One. The small, unpretentious cafe's menu is focused on morning eats. Omelets, Benedicts and other classic egg dishes claim real estate on the bill of fare alongside such atypical dishes as eggs served with cactus in a burrito. Of note is baked eggs with mustard and collard greens, baby bella mushrooms, grits and melted Gruyere cheese. Served in a cast-iron skillet with two slices of bread on the side, you’ll ask, “This is breakfast?”

Maximiliano serves a mess of a Southern breakfast. This is unexpected because the Highland Park restaurant—helmed by longtime Los Angeles restaurateur Andre Guerrero—describes itself as "kinda old-school Italian." Surprises like biscuits and gravy find its way on the brunch menu. Think: two house-baked Asiago biscuits, each topped with a poached egg, moist pulled pork and dressed in meaty, country gravy. Serve alongside roasted cubed potatoes, it’s how a lumberjack does brunch.