• Nolita House

  47 E. Houston St., nr. Mulberry St., second fl.; 212-625-1712

  No disrespect to jazz, but as a musical genre bluegrass simply suits brunch better. (Maybe it’s the banjos—so in tune with a coffee buzz.) At the Nolita House’s weekend Boozy Bluegrass Brunch (10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), a chorus of fiddles, banjos, and mandolins provides a rollicking compliment to the restaurant’s brandy-soaked brioche French toast (which co-owner Scott Bankey likens to a “really pretty, really delicious brick”). The performers—the appropriately named Fresh Baked Bluegrass (Sundays), the husband-and-wife duo Andrew and Nancy Hunt (Saturdays)—harmonize twangsome melodies for a crowd of rumpled downtowners, while the chalkboard walls and dated middle-school portraits lend a quirky, down-home vibe. Though the bluegrass sets are consistently packed, the waitstaff is vigilant about filling coffee mugs.

From the 2009 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine