Ever wondered why your chef friend always grimaces when you suggest brunch? Or why they suddenly develop a mysterious aversion to hollandaise sauce on a Sunday morning? Here’s the thing: professionals in the culinary world have seen what happens behind those gleaming kitchen doors during the weekend rush. They know which dishes hide questionable practices, which items pad restaurant profit margins, and which plates likely contain ingredients that have been hanging around since last Tuesday.
What follows might change the way you order at your favorite brunch spot forever.
Eggs Benedict: The Bacterial Time Bomb
Chefs warn that most restaurants typically fall short when it comes to Eggs Benedict, often resulting in snotty looking poached eggs with questionable ham and room-temperature hollandaise sauce. The real issue goes beyond just mediocre execution. Hollandaise sauce is made using raw egg yolks which can pose a salmonella risk, and the main gripe is that in many restaurants it’s usually prepared ahead of time and held at a lukewarm temperature until served.
This lukewarm holding temperature is the favorite environment for bacteria to copulate and reproduce. Think about it. Nobody makes hollandaise to order, and most likely the stuff on your eggs was made hours ago and held on station. In a documented outbreak, raw unpasteurized eggs served in hollandaise sauce with eggs Benedict were suspected as the source, with six of eight victims dining at the restaurant and five specifically recalling eating the hollandaise sauce.
Corned Beef Hash: The Leftover Gamble
When restaurants make corned beef hash from scratch, the risk is that it’s full of leftovers, with one retired chef recounting a prime rib hash from a local brunch spot that contained chopped-up leftover pieces of prime rib, leftover baked potato, and fajita vegetables. More often than not, the corned beef is not crispy enough, it’s too mushy, and the eggs are cold when the dish arrives at the table.
The dish became popular during wartime rationing, which tells you everything you need to know about its origins. Executive Chef Jehangir Mehta told Salon that although he has never been in any of the world wars, he knows people were forced to eat it out of necessity, and doesn’t see why anyone would choose it for brunch when there are plenty of delicious other options. It’s cheap but rarely impressive, serving primarily as a dumping ground for whatever the kitchen needs to use up before spoiling.
Steak and Eggs: The Budget Meat Cut
Chefs warn against steak and eggs unless you’re brunching in a steakhouse, noting that at low-end restaurants you’re probably getting the cheapest, chewiest cut of beef they could find. One of the main problems is that you often end up with a chewy lower-quality piece of beef rather than a tender quality cut. Weekend brunch isn’t exactly prime time for quality protein.
For a meal served only one or two days a week, restaurants do brunch only on weekends, and the calculus changes as the kitchen staff prepares ingredients for one service that won’t be used for the next service because it’s seven days away. That means your Saturday morning steak likely isn’t the priority for the purchasing manager. Save this order for dinner at an actual steakhouse where beef is the main event, not an afterthought to eggs.
Avocado Toast: The Instagram Tax
Let’s be real. According to Chris Arellanes, executive chef of KYU in New York City, avocado toast has been overplayed and overhyped for way too long. You’re essentially paying restaurant markup for something you could assemble at home in under three minutes. A $10 avocado toast uses a whole organic avocado which runs almost $3 each, and adding whole-grain bread, sesame seeds, and other garnishes brings the ingredients to $3.50, or about 35 percent of the menu price.
Chefs and diners alike are turning away from elaborate $20 avocado toast creations topped with everything from edible flowers to gold leaf, recognizing them as overpriced gimmicks rather than genuine culinary experiences. The Beverly Hills Hotel famously charges $38 for avocado toast at their Polo Lounge. Sure, you’re paying for ambiance and the celebrity-spotting opportunities, but is mashed avocado on bread really worth that kind of money? Most chefs would argue absolutely not.
Canadian Bacon: The Week-Old Mystery Meat
Chefs caution against getting Canadian bacon unless you’re in a high-end restaurant, questioning how long that Canadian bacon has been sitting in the walk-in refrigerator when brunch is only served once a week on the weekends, noting your bacon may have been sitting there for six days or more. Pre-cooked and ready to heat, Canadian bacon doesn’t exactly require culinary finesse.
The concern is how long that Canadian bacon has been festering in the walk-in, remembering that brunch is only served once a week on the weekends. A large part of the brunch issue is the delivery schedule for restaurants, as most restaurants get their meat, fish, and produce delivered on Tuesdays at the start of the restaurant week. By Sunday morning, you’re potentially eating something that’s been chilling in the fridge since the previous weekend. Not exactly appetizing when you think about it that way.
Bottomless Mimosas: The Cheap Juice Con
Customers want bottomless mimosas and want to order it any way they want, with roughly a quarter of the brunch crowd being particularly demanding about their mimosa preferences. Here’s what restaurants know and you probably don’t: those bottomless mimosa deals aren’t quite the bargain they seem. The sparkling wine is often the cheapest prosecco available, paired with orange juice that’s definitely not fresh-squeezed.
Brunch is one of the busiest times of the week for restaurant staff, where they have to deal with large groups of mimosa-fueled people lingering for hours, and dishes tend to be priced lower than dinner mains, meaning fewer tips for servers. Restaurants compensate by using bottom-shelf ingredients. Bartenders plead that they’re all exhausted or hungover from Saturday night’s shift, so please don’t ask them to make custom cocktails at 10 a.m., begging customers to just get the mimosa or bloody mary. The quality reflects that exhaustion and those razor-thin profit margins.
Next time you’re scanning that brunch menu on a lazy Sunday, remember that chefs have seen it all. It’s no secret chefs hate brunch, with Anthony Bourdain famously disparaging the booze-laden meal in his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential. Brunch menus are an open invitation to the cost-conscious chef, a dumping ground for the odd bits left over from Friday and Saturday nights. Maybe stick to the dishes that showcase fresh ingredients and can’t easily double as yesterday’s dinner scraps. Your stomach will thank you later.
