Up For Breakfast

Seats can be scarce in this cozy café, but if you are looking for something extra-special in the morning, Up For Breakfast is a gold mine. You really do go UP for breakfast. It is a second-story restaurant with window views of Main Street. There is pleasant art on the walls; and if you sit towards the back, you can enjoy a view of goings-on in the semi-open kitchen.

Pancakes are a taste of Vermont, especially when glazed with pools of maple syrup. You can have them with or without blueberries, made from sunny-hued buttermilk batter, dark and serious buckwheat batter, or sourdough. Sourdough ‘cakes make a faint crunching sound when you press the edge of a fork to their surface. Inside the lacy web that encloses them, they are thin but substantial, with the vigorous disposition of a starter with character.

Muffins are excellent, available hot from the tin or sliced, buttered and grilled. More elaborate meals include multi-ingredient fritattas, French toast made using big slabs of spice bread, and chicken-duck-cilantro sausage. Wild turkey hash – wildly assembled, not made from wild turkeys – is a cook’s tour-de-force that combines big shreds of roasted turkey with peppers, onions, potatoes, and pine nuts, all griddle-cooked until crusty brown on the outside and topped with poached eggs and a film of fine Hollandaise. If you like omelets, let us suggest “The Metropolitan” – smoked salmon, chopped red onions, melting-warm cream cheese, capers, and a sprinkle of dill.

Coffee is good, as are morning champagne cocktails, including Passion Fruit Mimosas.