Best Brunch

Unlike any other meal of the day or week, brunch is all about laziness, and languor, and the civilized appreciation of sloth as both lifestyle and art form. It's the time you either spend on the couch with lox, bagels, and the Sunday paper, or out at a stupefyingly lavish buffet spread that will do nothing to erase your acedia. The third alternative is to go to a place like Absinthe (make that exactly like Absinthe), where the preparation and presentation of this most indolent of meals is treated with the skill and imagination it deserves. The food's properly indulgent and delicious: light, buttery scones, creamy polenta dolloped with maple and mascarpone, pecan-ribboned granola with fresh berries and papaya, omelets bursting with plump Louisiana shrimp and fresh herbs, a croque monsieur layered with Madrange ham, Gruyere cheese, and a hint of Dijon. And the setting, a jewel of a bistro allusive of Chevalier, Piaf, and Toulouse-Lautrec, is absolutely charming.