Weekend Repast

The Granite Cafe

Sunday Brunch served 11:30am-3pm, $18, reservations suggested

This is clearly a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the days when the once very popular West Austin neighborhood hangout Granite Cafe lurched from one unfortunate change to another are now well over. New chef/partner Sam Dickey and his lovely wife Molly have the restaurant firmly in hand. Dickey and his hard-working kitchen staff are putting out interesting American regional fare and Molly has service and front-of-the-house operations in shipshape. Seeing as how the Dickeys are young parents themselves, the Granite is even a kid-friendly zone, with charming youngsters' menus to match.

The only bad news seems to be that former patrons are slow to forgive past trespasses. Perhaps a good way to reintroduce yourself to the Granite would be Sunday brunch. For a very reasonable $18, brunch diners receive free-flowing juice, coffee, and mimosas, a trip to the bread table loaded with fresh fruit, muffins, scones, and breads from the Dickeys' other venture, TapRoot Breads, an entrée from the menu, and dessert. On a recent Sunday, we started with muffins and slices of TapRoot's heavenly chocolate cherry bread slathered with fresh lemon curd. Once that divine combo was consumed, we moved on to Eggs Benedict with a tangy smoked chile hollandaise paired with sweet potato and black bean hash. We noticed the menu suggests they'll make a French toast entrée with the chocolate cherry bread and that promise is enough to get us back here to enjoy brunch again on one of the nicest decks in town.