Stick To Your Diet—or Don't—for Brunch At Harvey In Williamsburg

It's hard to walk a middle line with brunch. Most places offer dishes either on which to gorge or of which you can proudly point to as indicators of your dietary martyrdom, with little in between—it's either sugar headache-inducing Nutella-stuffed French toast with a strong mimosa or dry quinoa cakes and a chewy kale smoothie. All or nothing; moderation is nowhere to be found.

Except at Harvey, in the Williamsburg Hotel on Wythe Avenue. There's the requisite avocado toast with hemp seeds, fresh chiles, and soft herbs and açaí bowl with berries, banana, and granola, both of which are perfectly fine contributions to these trendy dishes. Then there's the hash brown sandwich of eggs, cheese, slab bacon, and spicy fermented ketchup all piled between two crispy, McDonald's-like hash browns, making it decadent, delicious, and gluten-free. Another fantastic option for the gluten-intolerant is the slab bacon taco trio served with crispy slaw that pair well with Harvey's Margarita. Burger enthusiasts (we know who we are) will be pleased by the quarter-pound dry-aged short rib cheeseburger with maple-smoked Vermont Cheddar and bread and butter pickles as it's juicy and satisfying but doesn't breakdown into a dripping mess halfway through the meal.

A few behind-the-scenes details help explain Harvey's successful take on this beloved weekend meal: the bread is sourced from the Brooklyn Bread Lab and made with freshly milled ancient grains, the slab bacon is from quality meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda, and the excellent coffee and espresso is from Brooklyn-based Coffee of Grace.

So Harvey is one place you and a friend can hit after Saturday morning yoga or a #legday at Equinox and not undo all the good you just did for yourself at the gym. In fact, the hotel maintains an ongoing partnership with Sync Studios for yoga and spin classes and launched a bi-weekly MNDFL pop-up last month that features 45-minute meditation classes open to the public, so you can one-stop-shop your wellness routine with an activity followed by a healthful meal. You can also roll out of bed to work through a multi-coursed bacon regiment and feel damn proud of yourself, too.

The meal that was the subject of this review was provided at no cost to the writer.