Come the weekend, many downtown restaurants turn their intimate, dimly lit dinners into buzzy (and often boozy) brunches—the perfect cure for eggnog-induced hangovers. From High Note Café’s vegan options to Fork’s Bloody Mary bar, these Boise restaurants are a warm treat for these cold holiday mornings.
The Modern
Nate Whitley, the head chef at the Modern Hotel and Bar, created his brunch menu with the intention of breaking away from conventional breakfast and introducing new flavors to the Americanized brunch concept.
“In a way we just thought we’d do the kind of food we were interested in doing,” Whitley said. “You can put an egg on it, and it’s brunch.”
His originality is mouth-wateringly obvious. Items like the ash reshteh and the blackstrap molasses French toast make it clear that the Modern is not trying to play by the rules—and, if the smoked salmon dish, which comes bathed in a buttery crème fraiche atop silky greens and somehow both paper-thin and pillowy buckwheat pancakes—is any indication, their rebellion serves them well.
The Modern’s bar opens at 10 a.m., and it offers a rotating selection of cocktails that cover all the essential AM drink bases: the Mary, the Sparkling, the Low Octane and the Wild Card. For adventurous diners, the Wild Card’s surprising combination of tequila and espresso, smoothly united by a bittersweet amaro, is not to be missed. For more traditional brunch-goers, the Sparkling, as Whitley said, is “a bubbly, wine-based cocktail that’s always nice for brunch.”
High Note Café
At High Note Café, brunch isn’t the standard bacon and eggs. This cozy spot serves an all-vegan menu weekdays from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and weekends from 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. The menu features classic options like scrambles and potato hashes, but it gets an upgrade by replacing the would-be eggs with a crumbly, grilled tofu seasoned so well its rumored blandness seems like a sad joke. The breakfast sandwich, which stars the same tofu as in the scrambles, atop vegan cheese, avocado and black beans, is a hearty option.
Even better though, according to server Amanda Barker, is the breakfast burrito.
“Oh man, everything here is made from scratch,” she said, listing a cilantro cream sauce, spiced and puréed black beans and pico de gallo in the breakfast burrito. “It’s huge too, so you can eat half of it, and take the other half home!”
High Note Café also serves drinks that align with the restaurant’s mission to offer Boiseans with fresh, plant-based options. All the beer and wine on High Note’s menu are vegan. “We go all the way,” Barker said. And of course, no brunch would be complete without mimosas. High Note offers an exciting array of choices, all of which are house-made and come with fresh fruit on the side. Written in colorful letters on a whiteboard in the center of the room, it’s nearly impossible to resist ordering a cucumber agave, blueberry basil or raspberry mint mimosa—or maybe even all three.
Fork
If a Bloody Mary is a must, there’s a spicy, celery-garnished haven at Fork, open for brunch Saturday and Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. The downtown staple’s Bloody Mary bar is local favorite, giving diners plenty of options for the endlessly modifiable tomato-based cocktail.
“In the middle of the restaurant, we set up all the goodies,” said Fork Manager Jackie Shannon. “Garnishes, hot sauces, spices… everything’s there.”
Though drinks are the stars, Fork’s brunch menu also offers a variety of locally-sourced food dishes. From an eggs and bacon “OG” breakfast to a bibimbap bowl with gochujang glazed chicken, Fork has options for every craving.
“Our house-baked jumbo cinnamon roll with salted caramel sauce and frosting is a favorite,” Shannon said about the pastry, served with a knife stabbed through its gooey dough. To beat the weekend crowds and score a cinnamon roll before they’re gone, reservations are recommended.
