Daniel Patterson’s Oakland outpost, Plum, is the latest local gastronomic darling to turn the attentions of its talented chefs — to say nothing of its sous vide immersion circulators and Pacojets — toward that most maligned of meals: the weekend brunch.
Anthony Bourdain, that curmudgeon of the culinary world, has written that restaurant brunches are “a dumping ground for the odd bits left over from Friday and Saturday nights” and “punishment block for the B-Team cooks.” Fortunately, the Bay Area is chock full of restaurants that fly in the face of that kind of thinking — Canteen in San Francisco and Oakland’s Camino immediately come to mind. And at Plum, where Chef Charlie Parker has been heading up the kitchen since December, the brunch menu is just two weeks old and perhaps a work in progress. But the food, already, verges on magical.