Best Breakfasts: Eggs

Whether you’re treating yourself to a high-end brunch or just catching breakfast at a comfy neighborhood spot around the corner, chances are if they’re serving morning fare, they’ll cook your eggs the way you like ’em.

Best Northwest Spin on Eggs Benedict
Etta’s, Tom Douglas’ most uniquely Northwest eatery near the Pike Place Market, serves up its Dungeness crab eggs Benedict ($17) every weekend during brunch to crustacean-loving locals and tourists alike. The signature hollandaise is softly scented with lemon and accented with the tangy taste of dill, which provides lightness to the traditionally rich sauce. Etta’s picture-perfect home fries, cubed and completely browned over, round out this stellar plate.

Best Cheap-and-Cheerful Eggs Benedict
Located on a busy stretch on Capitol Hill, Glo’s has become a Seattle institution for those looking to stave off a killer hangover. The eggs Benedict platters ($10.95) come capped with ladlefuls of sunny-yellow, made-from-scratch hollandaise, along with a side of crunchy hash browns. The eggs Californian ($10.95), with avocado and grilled tomatoes, offset the creamy sauce and keep things tasting fresh.

Best Baked Eggs
Oftentimes, it’s the simple dishes that we order time and time again, and this rings true at sibling establishments Le Pichet near the Pike Place Market and the more casual Café Presse on Capitol Hill. The œufs plats, jambon et fromage ($8 at Pichet, $7 at Presse) come in a shallow dish lined with thin slices of ham. Two eggs are cracked into the vessel, with slices of Gruyère carefully shingled over top. After a few minutes in the oven, the œufs plats arrive blisteringly hot—melty cheese, runny yolks and savory ham combining to create something more—inspiring cravings for this uncomplicated entree year-round.

Best Gourmet Omelets
Chef and national culinary authority Daniel Boulud devotes a few pages in his book Letters to a Young Chef to discuss the perfect omelet—and it appears someone in the Bastille kitchen has taken that chapter to heart. The omelet Provençale ($12) turned out during Sunday brunch service—most recently with sautéed prawns, tart goat cheese and tomato confit—offers bites of buttery, soft-curded eggs cooked just ’til they have enough body to envelop the filling.

Best Home-style Omelet
George’s Place in Kirkland offers up the Olympic omelet ($12.99), a delectable combination of gyro meat (ground, seasoned lamb cooked on a spit), pepperonicini, tomatoes, kalamata olives, onions and feta, with homemade tzatziki sauce speckled with fresh dill. The side of hash arrives crisp on the outside, with a moist and fluffy interior. This Herculean portion could easily feed two. And, an entry on omelets wouldn’t be complete without a nod to the 55-year-old Seattle institution Beth’s Café, whose 12-egg behemoth (try it with chili, sour cream, cheddar, and salsa for $15.75) has been featured on both the Food Network and Man vs. Food. Bonus: Bottomless hash browns come with every order.

The Best Scramble
Pete’s Egg Nest in Greenwood serves up our favorite greasy-spoon scrambles, with a creamy mound of eggs encasing generous handfuls of various fillings. Try the sausage scramble—hearty chunks of link sausage, fried together with chopped onions, mushrooms and cheddar ($8.25).

Most Creative Egg Dish
Spring Hill chef Mark Fuller has a thing for eggs. The delicate protein is the star of several dinner items (duck egg ravioli or poached eggs and grilled prawns set over grits), making it all the more fitting that Fuller’s weekend brunch menu would offer a few egg-tastic treats. Our favorite is the Spring Hole ($7), a hunk of soft bread served with two fried eggs nestled in a “hole” and smothered with a creamy, melt-in-your-mouth sausage gravy (also available on the side). Satisfying, but not overfilling.


Best Quiche
The first thing you’ll notice about the quiche ($6 a slice, take home or eat in) at Ballard’s Honoré Artisan Bakery is its magnificent mahogany crust. Each crisp, flaky shard is browned through and through, which offers a deep accent to the custardy filling—sometimes spinach and Gouda, sometimes cauliflower, bacon and goat cheese. Time your arrival for 10 a.m. to better your chances of snagging a slice warm from the oven.

The Best Tex-Mex Scramble
The Dish in Ballard is renowned for long morning waits for a table, so much so that on weekends it has a coffee cart outside for the hoards that huddle there. (Props to The Dish for serving Stumptown’s award-winning brew.) Once you’ve snagged a seat inside, go for The Slacker Especial, a Tex-Mex-inspired, ultramoist scramble with Jack cheese, enchilada sauce, green chiles, salsa, tortilla chips and a spoon of cooling sour cream. Toast or a scone, and a hearty serving of roasted red potatoes, deliciously and aggressively seasoned, round out the meal.

Best Mexican Breakfast
You’ll understand why waiting for a table at Señor Moose in Ballard is worthwhile, once you’ve had a bite of the chorizo con papas y nopales: a chorizo, potato, and cactus fry-up ($10.95). The cactus lends a refreshing, herbaceous note to the otherwise hearty dish, while the juices from the mildly spicy chorizo keep everything nicely moist. Two eggs cooked your way cap off this south-of-the-border hash.

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With additional reporting by Kate Calamusa and Karen Johnson