Late morning into early afternoon. The day has nowhere to be.
Sunday brunch as a date has a specific quality that dinner can’t replicate: it’s time you weren’t supposed to do anything with anyway. The absence of obligation is built in. You can stay for two hours or four. You can have coffee and then have more coffee. Nothing is pushing you out the door.
This works best when you don’t rush to it. Sleep in. Move slowly. Arrive somewhere around eleven — not ten, when it’s still trying to be breakfast, and not one, when the kitchen is in the weeds and the best tables are taken (eleven to eleven-thirty is the sweet spot at most places; you’ll get better service and a better table).
The menu is beside the point in a specific way. You’re not there to have the most impressive plate — you’re there to sit across from someone in the morning light and eat something warm. Order whatever you’d actually want to eat at that hour. The eggs benedict is probably fine. So is the stack of pancakes. The good brunch spots do both well enough that the choice is about what you feel like, not what’s better.
Drinks deserve more consideration. A good Bloody Mary is worth having if they make their own mix (ask). Brunch cocktails are generally overpriced and oversweet; the exception is a place with a considered list rather than a laminated insert. If the coffee program is serious — proper espresso drinks, maybe a pour-over option — that’s usually a sign the kitchen takes the rest of it seriously too.
The conversation at brunch is different from dinner conversation. You’re both a little slower, a little less defended. Things come up at eleven in the morning that wouldn’t come up at eight at night. There’s something about daylight and coffee and nowhere to be that loosens things.
After, take a walk. There’s almost always somewhere to walk from a good brunch. The neighborhood, the park, the water if there’s water nearby. Let the meal extend into the afternoon without either of you deciding to extend it. Just keep moving and see what happens.
Find your local equivalent
The best brunch spots are almost never the ones with a line around the block. Those places have learned to extract maximum revenue from the weekend rush; they’re not set up for a slow morning. Look for a neighborhood restaurant that does dinner seriously and offers brunch as a quieter weekend mode. The brunch at a good bistro is usually better than the brunch at a dedicated brunch restaurant. Yelp filters for “good for groups” will surface the wrong places; look instead at what serious food people in your city are recommending on weekends.
A regional note
New Orleans takes brunch more seriously than anywhere else in America — Commander’s Palace on a Sunday is an experience with no equivalent. New York has more good brunch restaurants per capita than anywhere else, with the most interesting ones concentrated in the West Village, Park Slope, and Williamsburg. Chicago’s Logan Square has a cluster of genuinely excellent options. Most Southern cities punch above their weight on this particular meal.
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