If you didn’t catch it on the newsstand, Esquire’s March issue — all about breakfast — is finally online. The paean to the most important meal of the day is built around centerpiece roundup of the 59 Best Breakfast Places in America.
Chicago love, thanks very much, from Esquire contributing editor Ted Allen, who has apparently entered a time portal to twenty years ago. He calls out the perpetually packed Ann Sather (all locations) and Manny’s as the breakfasts in town that register on a national scale. Seriously? Sure, we cut our teeth on Sather’s cinnamon buns and Manny’s latkes, but that was when we were a baby. Virtually all of our adulthood visits to both restaurants have been disappointments on a grand scale, as the packed rooms (one part tourist, one part fellow nostalgiaholics) gave way to bland, unexciting, seriously overpriced plates of cardiac arrest.
Just in case you’re a stranger in your own town:
the only food that matters at Ann Sather is its spectacular cinnamon buns, the size of a baby’s head. They’re the backbone of the business, a local legend, more beloved at Chicago offices than any box of flaccid doughnuts. It is a great and simple truth: This is what happiness is. Sugar. Flour. Spice. And butter.
And of Manny’s:
If you know the real Chicago, you know Manny’s Coffee Shop and Deli. You knew it when Jefferson Street and Roosevelt Road were gritty stretches of schmatte shops and dress boutiques southwest of the Loop. Now, if you really know Chicago, you knew Manny’s back when it was Sunny’s, before the Raskin family bought the joint in 1942 and figured they’d save money buying just two letters instead of a whole new sign. If not, no matter. It’s the same as ever, that certain kind of cafeteria-style Jewish deli that will never go out of (or into) style. Fluorescent lights and Formica tables. Cops, tradesmen, and local pols. Plastic trays and blistering-hot coffee. And, of course, great steaming piles of scrambled eggs and potato pancakes
To add insult to injury, Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger (like Allen, a resident of New York) tries to redeem himself with a plug for Walker Bros Pancake House in Wilmette. He gives it the hard sell with “You know this place. You saw it in Ordinary People. It’s where Timothy Hutton last sees his friend before she kills herself.”
Sigh.
Best Breakfasts in America [Esquire]
Ann Sather [MenuPages]
Ann Sather [Official Site]
Manny’s Coffee Shop & Deli [MenuPages]
[Photo: Joe M500/Flickr]
