If you've tired of the typical Sunday morning pancakes-and-eggs drill, shake up your brunch routine with a trip to Trenchermen, where breakfast classics are cleverly upgraded and reinterpreted.
Trenchermen's ( far superior ) version of the Egg McMuffin, for instance, pairs fluffy scrambled eggs with a juicy slice of deliciously salty corned beef, topped with melted Gruyere. Meat lovers hit the jackpot here. All of the meats are cured in house, and you can sample a bunch of them by ordering the bacon flight or pork flight. Few will be able to resist an order of the intriguing-sounding "bacon stuffed bacon." Before mine arrived, I was trying to imagine various scenarios in which bacon could be stuffed with bacon, and couldn't really come up with much. The mystery was solved when a sizzling plate of pork belly wrapped around thick cuts of juicy ham was presented to me. It's tender and succulent, and an indulgent change of pace from crispy strips of traditional bacon.
Buttermilk biscuits also undergo a meat-centric transformation. Instead of traditional sausage gravy, Trencherman's soft, fluffy biscuits are swimming in a pool of spicy pepperoni gravy and topped with a fried egg. The pepperoni gravy is interesting and tasty, undoubtedly a clever change, but I found myself missing the creamy comfort I typically associate with biscuits and gravy. The breakfast potatoes are another item that perhaps are not improved with re-engineering. Trenchermen's potatoes are long, thick spears. They're not home fries, but they're not French fries, and while they're seasoned nicely, they don't exactly hit the spot as a breakfast potato would. It's kind of like being served a small baked potato with your breakfast—it's in the general vicinity, but it misses the mark.
Who has not found herself, perhaps a bit bleary-eyed from Saturday night, agonizing over the perennial brunch dilemma: sweet or savory? Trenchermen solves that predicament once and for all. All of the entrées are savory, but there's a nice section of pastries and shareable sweets. Problem solved—you get both sweet and savory, and everybody leaves happy.
My favorite of the pastries was the apricot and burrata Danish. The mild and creamy burrata is a very welcome upgrade from the gelatinous cheese many Danishes are stuffed with. On my visit, the special pastry for the day was Mexican sopapillas, which were tasty, but a bit dense and hard, more like a cookie than a pastry. The best part was the jalapeno raspberry jam that accompanied them. My table took to dipping everything in the tangy, slightly spicy jam.
Almost as important as the food at brunch are the drinks—and Trenchermen does not disappoint. Boozehounds and teetotalers alike will find something to whet their whistles. The traditional mimosa is swapped for the grittier beermosa, in which draft beer is made palatable for morning drinking with grapefruit and honey. Or, try the wake & bake, a petit iced coffee drink spike with coffee liqueur and Kringle, a creamy liqueur with buttery and nutty flavors. If you came to get your caffeine fix, then you're at the right place. Trenchermen doesn't just serve coffee, they've got a whole coffee program, in which they team up each month with a different coffee roaster to select a bean to serve exclusively at brunch. The coffee is brewed using the v60 pour-over method, a slow and precise process that extracts the flavors and aromas from the coffee bean. After the coffee of the month is chosen, the kitchen comes up with a special pastry to pair specifically with that coffee, just for the month—so, yeah, coffee is serious business at Trenchermen.
And to top it all off, Trenchermen's Bucktown dining room is a lovely space to enjoy a leisurely morning meal ( that rolls into afternoon drinks, perhaps ). Way back when, the North Avenue building was home to the Luxor Russian Baths. Original details like white tiles remain, and they are expertly mixed with rustic wood and handsome leather pieces. The vibe is kind of that of a turn-of-the-century saloon, except not a bit kitschy. There is indeed a sense of history on the space, and the overall aesthetic is calm and confident—the perfect backdrop to let the food take center stage.
Trenchermen is at 2039 W. North Ave.; call 773-661-1540 or visit www.trenchermen.com .
Do you need some more Sugar & Spice in your life? Follow me on Twitter: @SugarAndSpiceMS—for inside scoop and commentary on Chicago's dining scene.
