Cleveland, OHBrunch

Chef Karen Small brings a dozen years in Appalachia to this compact Ohio City dining room, and brunch is where it lands most clearly. The cheddar and chive biscuits, served with sorghum butter and jam, set the tone for a menu that favors Southern-leaning comfort over brunch spectacle. The intimate room keeps the cooking personal and the pace unhurried.

Inside the historic West Side Market, this cafe cooks with ingredients pulled from the market's own vendors. A brunch anchor is the kielbasa hash, smoky sausage with onions and potatoes under poached eggs and a silky Hollandaise. The setting is part of the draw, a working-market perch that ties the plate to the stalls just outside the door.

Decked out in classic Parisian style, Le Petit Triangle pairs a French pastry case with a sit-down brunch. The kitchen's savory French toast is the item people describe most, custardy bread topped with roasted butternut squash, wild mushrooms, and caramelized onions under sage maple syrup. It makes for an unhurried, distinctly European weekend meal in Ohio City.

Hecks has run brunch out of its historic Ohio City building for roughly half a century, a quieter counterpart to the burgers that made its name. Owner Fadi Daoud points to the baklava French toast, stuffed with cinnamon walnuts and poured over with honey-rosewater syrup, as the weekend signature. The room carries the patina of a long-running neighborhood fixture.

Chef Fabio Salerno's Sicilian-leaning restaurant sits on the Flats East Bank, where brunch takes a playful turn. Its chicken and waffles skewer golden fried chicken and a house-made waffle into a stacked presentation, finished with BBQ maple syrup and sweet pickled jalapeños. The riverfront setting and Italian sensibility set it apart from a standard diner brunch in the Flats.