Where to Brunch on Queen West: Long-Running Rooms vs. Hotel Brunch vs. Global Plates

Queen West brunch is not one thing. The strip runs from the Queen and University end, where the rooms have been there for decades, west through the hotel dining rooms of West Queen West and out into Parkdale, where the most interesting cooking is happening. The distance is walkable but the experiences are not interchangeable, so it is worth deciding what kind of morning you want before you decide where to line up.

The long-running rooms

Queen Mother Cafe has been on Queen Street West since 1974, which in this neighbourhood makes it close to an institution. The kitchen draws on Laotian roots, with dishes inspired by that heritage sitting alongside global comfort food, and the brunch menu splits between a Dim Sum Quartet of dumplings and a full range of eggs Benedict. It is dark, wood-panelled and forgiving of a slow start, and it is the answer when your group cannot agree on a cuisine.

The advantage of rooms like this is predictability. The menu will be broad enough that the person who wants pancakes and the person who wants dumplings can both order well, and nobody has to explain the concept.

The hotel brunch: the Drake

Further west at 1150 Queen St. W., the Drake Hotel is running the most structured brunch on the strip. Weekend brunch runs Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., which is unusually generous — a four o'clock brunch cutoff means you can genuinely sleep in. The kitchen is led by executive chef Daniel Hyam and the food is modern bistro cooking built around local ingredients and designed to be shared.

There are effectively several brunches happening in one building. The Drake Café opens daily from 8 a.m. and takes reservations across breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch, with signature scones and all-day breakfast plates. The Drake Lounge runs a menu from brunch straight through to late night. And on Saturdays there is drag brunch with Miss Moço from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., where the cocktails lead and the espresso martini towers arrive at the table.

Choose the Drake when brunch is the event rather than the fuel — a birthday, a group of visitors, or any occasion where you want the room to do some of the work. Book ahead; the drag brunch in particular does not accommodate walk-ins gracefully.

The global plates, west of Trinity Bellwoods

The most distinctive brunches on this stretch are the ones that are not trying to be brunch at all. Cafe Neon serves locally roasted espresso and reasonably priced Mediterranean food in a colourful room modelled on the Greek kafeneio, the neighbourhood meeting place; the full brunch menu with Greek touches and fresh bread runs on weekends. It is the pick when you want to sit with a coffee for an hour without feeling rushed out of the seat.

Keep going west into Parkdale and BB's is doing bold, homey Filipino cooking: silogs, ube pancakes and calamansi mimosas. It is the one on this list most likely to produce a dish you have not had at brunch before, and the one worth the extra fifteen minutes of walking.

How to choose

Work backwards from the constraint. If the constraint is a group with mixed tastes, Queen Mother Cafe's breadth solves it. If the constraint is time — you are not going to be upright before noon — the Drake's 4 p.m. weekend cutoff is the most forgiving on the strip, and the Drake Café's 8 a.m. daily open covers the opposite problem. If the constraint is money, Cafe Neon is the reasonably priced option and does not push you out the door.

If there is no constraint and you just want the best plate of food, walk west. The Parkdale end is where the cooking is least conventional, and BB's calamansi mimosa is a better argument for brunch than most bottomless deals in the city.

Two practical notes. First, almost nothing on Queen West takes weekend walk-ins comfortably after 11 a.m.; either arrive early or reserve. Second, the strip is long — Queen and University to Parkdale is a solid half-hour walk — so pick your end before you set out rather than wandering west hoping for a table.