The Best Brunch and Breakfast Spots Near Central Park, NYC

Directly across the street from Central Park and set snugly next door to the Church of the Heavenly Rest is Australian café mini-chain Bluestone Lane. You’ll find a host of light, healthy offerings, such as coconut quinoa and oat porridge; banana bread topped with ricotta, toasted pecans, fruit and honey; and the requisite avocado smash. During the warmer months, diners spill out onto the sidewalk café, eating and sipping flat whites with Central Park as their backdrop.

It’s hard to ignore the lengthy wait at Sarabeth’s, but it does make sense; the acclaimed spot has been an Upper East Side institution since 1983. In the white tablecloth-clad dining room, breakfast and brunch run the gamut, from lemon ricotta pancakes, frittatas and omelets to cornmeal-crusted English muffins. Although you’d be remiss to pass on Sarabeth’s basket of muffins, you can always grab a couple of sweets at the bakery counter on your way out.

The Alsatian charm is in full effect at Café d’Alsace, from the berries tucked into the thin sheaths of crepes to the soft, flaky croissants. After all, at the helm of the kitchen is Philippe Roussel, a third-generation chef who calls France home. Here, Roussel brings a bit of France to the Upper East Side in the form of croque-madames teeming with bubbling cheese and a sunny-side-up egg, and a delicate crepe soufflé with passion fruit coulis.

The Mermaid Inn is a quiet sanctuary in the Upper West Side. Seafood-forward brunch dishes like smoked salmon eggs benedict are offset with creative cocktails like a pomegranate margarita and the Mermaid Mary, doused with Old Bay-spiced Mary mix.

Good Enough to Eat has been crafting simple, homey American breakfast fare on the Upper West Side since 1981. The servers may be surly and the crowds outrageous, but the food is undeniably good enough to eat. Eggs can come just about any way – whisked into omelets, poached atop corned beef hash, scrambled in breakfast tacos – while pancakes are studded with chocolate crumbles, apple slices, oats and cornmeal.

Pickled food, unsurprisingly, features heavily on the menu here – there are pickled eggs, carrots, tomatoes, jalapeños and cucumbers – but this Upper West Side establishment knows its way around biscuit breakfast sandwiches, too. Choose from 14 varieties, which can come flush with sausage gravy, cheesy grits and house-made preserves. After feasting on pancakes and grits, you can walk it all off. After all, Central Park West is only two blocks away.

There’s seemingly always a wait to get into the Penrose, especially on weekends when brunch is served. This half bar, half restaurant certainly knows a thing or two about cocktails. A particular highlight is Mister Pink, made with pink-peppercorn-infused tequila, hibiscus and lime. Once seated, sample fun dishes like French toast sticks (to be directly plunged into brown-butter maple syrup), mac and cheese bites, and fried chicken and waffles.

Madison Avenue certainly seems an unlikely spot to house a greasy diner, but sandwiched between single-family brownstones and fancy high-fashion boutiques is Viand, a minuscule diner founded in 1976. The narrow, hallway-like space is divided into cushioned booths on one side and a counter, dotted with swiveling chairs facing the kitchen, on the other. The teeny kitchen specializes in your favorite diner fare: eggs every way, towering stacks of pancakes, thick slabs of French toast and milkshakes. Here, you may be sitting elbow-to-elbow with your neighbor, but that’s OK; you’ll also be sipping bubbly egg creams and dousing pancakes with an unending supply of maple syrup.

Alice’s has two locations (the only difference is the Upper East Side site is larger than the Upper West Side’s) to pinky-up for high tea. Both establishments are Alice in Wonderland themed and lean into the fantastical and whimsical of their namesake. The menu is strewn with illustrations of a falling Alice and ticking clocks, along with dishes like The Mad Hatter, a tiered platter of scones and dainty sandwiches. Breakfast options also include pumpkin pancakes, create-your-own crepes and a variety of tea, poured into charmingly mismatched cups and saucers.