Best Brunch in Portland, Maine

How this list was built

Two filters, both stated up front so you can disagree with them.

First, a place had to have weekend hours that begin in the morning. That is the practical definition of somewhere that can serve you brunch, and it quietly removes about two-thirds of Portland's better-known restaurants, which do not open until dinner.

Second, everything that passed was ranked by rating weighted against review volume. A 4.9 from thirty reviews is not evidence in the way a 4.6 from eight thousand is, and weighting keeps a single enthusiastic season from outranking a decade of consistency.

One caveat on the data: this list is built from restaurants. Portland's bakeries and coffee bars, several of which are as good as anything on it, are not in scope here.

The ranking

The institutions

Becky's Diner (4.6 from 8,062 reviews, 390 Commercial Street) is the most-reviewed restaurant in Portland and it is a diner on the working waterfront that opens early enough to feed boat crews before they go out. Eight thousand reviews and still a 4.6 is a remarkable thing to hold; the food is diner food, executed properly, at prices that have not chased the neighborhood upmarket.

Go early. Becky's has a small dining room and a counter, and by mid-morning on a summer Sunday the line is out the door and down Commercial Street. The counter usually moves faster than the tables if you are a pair.

The Porthole Restaurant & Pub (4.3 from 3,458 reviews, 20 Custom House Wharf) is the one with the deck over the water, reached down a genuinely scruffy working wharf that people either love or find alarming. It opens early, it does a big all-day breakfast, and the deck on a clear morning is the best seat in the city for the money. The 4.3 is the lowest rating in this list's top tier, and it is fair. Service on a busy morning can be slow, and you are paying partly for the location.

The brunch specialists

Hot Suppa (4.7 from 2,287 reviews, 703 Congress Street) is the brunch restaurant in Portland if you only get one. It runs a weekend service that finishes in the early afternoon and does Southern-leaning breakfast (hash, grits, biscuits) in a converted house on upper Congress. The combination of 4.7 across more than two thousand reviews is the strongest in this category by some distance.

It is also small and does not solve the queue problem for you. Arrive at opening or accept a wait.

UNION Restaurant (4.4 from 642 reviews, 390 Congress Street) sits inside the Press Hotel and runs a proper morning-through-early-afternoon service every day, which makes it the reliable option when everywhere else is three deep. It is a hotel dining room, so it is calmer and more expensive than the diners, and you can usually walk in.

The Front Room (4.5 from 1,121 reviews, 73 Congress Street) on Munjoy Hill is the neighborhood brunch that locals actually use, with a long weekend service and a menu that runs from eggs to full plates. Less of a scene than the Old Port rooms and easier to get into.

Bistro Leluco (4.7 from 115 reviews, 347 Cottage Road) is across the bridge in South Portland and does a tight weekend midday service that ends early. Small review count, high rating, and far enough out of the center that the Old Port queue never reaches it.

The chef rooms that open at midday

These are dinner restaurants that also run a short weekend daytime service. The food is more ambitious than diner brunch; the portions and the pricing follow.

• Central Provisions (4.6 from 1,737 reviews, 414 Fore Street): small plates in a brick-and-timber room in the Old Port, with a midday weekend service that closes before dinner prep. One of the best-regarded restaurants in the city at any hour.
• The Continental (4.8 from 316 reviews, 170 Brighton Avenue): the highest-rated room on this list outside Little Pig, out on Brighton Avenue away from the tourist grid.
• Little Pig (5.0 from 209 reviews, 722b Congress Street): a perfect 5.0 across 209 reviews, which almost nothing anywhere sustains. Tiny, on upper Congress, open through the middle of the day.

Away from the Old Port

Worth the ten-minute drive or the uphill walk, and consistently easier to get into:

• Bird & Co. (4.6 from 716 reviews, 539 Deering Avenue). Deering Center, open from mid-morning, a neighborhood room rather than a destination.
• Salt Yard Cafe & Bar (4.6 from 379 reviews, 285 Commercial Street), on the waterfront but at the quieter western end, open from early.
• Lenora (4.4 from 260 reviews, 2 Portland Square). Downtown, opens in the morning, useful if you are staying in the middle of the city.
• Thames Landing (4.4 from 116 reviews, 60 Thames Street), on the eastern waterfront near the ferry terminal, open from mid-morning.
• Tuscan Table (4.5 from 2,426 reviews, 390 Gorham Road, South Portland): a big suburban room with a Sunday morning opening and, crucially, a parking lot.

Open at midday, but not really brunch

Three of Portland's most famous restaurants open around late morning at weekends and will therefore turn up in any hours-based brunch search. They are excellent. They are not brunch, and ordering a plate of oysters at half past eleven is lunch with better lighting.

• Eventide Oyster Co.: 4.5 from 5,227 reviews, 86 Middle Street.
• Duckfat: 4.6 from 5,332 reviews, 43 Middle Street.
• The Highroller Lobster Co.: 4.6 from 5,388 reviews, 104 Exchange Street.

Mentioned because they are what you will find yourself standing outside of at noon on a Sunday when your first three choices had ninety-minute waits, and because they are all genuinely worth it on their own terms.

The honest drawback

Portland brunch on a summer weekend is a waiting exercise. The best places are small, most take no reservations, and between roughly ten and one on a Saturday or Sunday in July and August you should expect an hour outside somewhere popular. Cruise ship days make it worse.

Three ways around it. Go at opening, which almost nobody does and which costs you nothing but an alarm. Go on a weekday, when the same kitchens are doing the same food to a quarter of the crowd. Or go in the shoulder seasons. May, or late September into October, when Portland is at its best and the queues are half the length.

Worth the drive

Palace Diner (4.7 from 1,196 reviews, 18 Franklin Street) is in Biddeford, twenty-five minutes south, and is a fifteen-seat railcar diner that has a national reputation. Fifteen seats means the wait can be worse than anything in Portland, but if you are heading down the coast anyway it is the best breakfast in the region and it is not close.

After brunch

The Eastern Promenade Trail starts a few minutes from the Old Port and is the obvious walk-it-off. The mailboat run around Casco Bay leaves from the ferry terminal, and Peaks Island is a twenty-minute crossing if you want a longer afternoon. Cape Elizabeth and Portland Head Light are fifteen minutes south by car. For the wider picture of where to eat in the city and beyond, see our restaurants listing.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best brunch in Portland, Maine?

By rating weighted against review volume, Becky's Diner leads at 4.6 from 8,062 reviews, though it is a diner, not a brunch restaurant in the modern sense. For dedicated brunch, Hot Suppa (4.7 from 2,287 reviews) is the strongest, and it is the one most locals name first.

Do Portland brunch restaurants take reservations?

Mostly not. The diners and the small brunch rooms work on walk-ins and a line. UNION Restaurant inside the Press Hotel is the main exception and the reliable fallback when everywhere else is full. If you want a guaranteed table, a hotel dining room is the realistic route.

How long is the wait for brunch in Portland?

On a summer weekend between mid-morning and early afternoon, plan on up to an hour at the popular places, and longer when cruise ships are in. Arriving at opening usually gets you straight in. Weekdays and the shoulder seasons cut the wait dramatically for exactly the same food.

Where can you get brunch in Portland without the Old Port crowds?

Head uphill or across the bridge. Bird & Co. (4.6 from 716 reviews) in Deering Center, The Continental (4.8 from 316 reviews) on Brighton Avenue and Bistro Leluco (4.7 from 115 reviews) in South Portland all sit outside the tourist grid and are consistently easier to walk into.