Best Providence breakfasts

From the pancakes with "small-batch" maple syrup at the restaurant called Temple-Downtown, to Julian Forge's creative spins on homemade hash at Julian's, find the best breakfasts in Providence in the Providence Journal today. At right: Temple dining room.

Wrap v. Crepe

I don't like wraps. I guess other people must, because wraps are everywhere — wrapping ham and Swiss that would be better between two slices of good soft bread, wrapping eggs and bacon for breakfast. . . Just about anywhere you go to order a sandwich, you are told that you can have a wrap instead. I guess the idea is that the wrap material, whatever it is, is so hard and stiff that you can eat while driving. Wonderful, except that it's like eating cardboard. Give me a warm soft crepe any day over a wrap.

In this country, people seem to think of crepes only in terms of the flaming dessert Crepes Suzette, served at fancy French restaurants. But in France crepes are eaten for a quick breakfast or lunch snack, from Mama et Papa cafes or even from street stands where the crepes are made fresh while you watch.


Crepes may be either sweet, as in topped with ice cream or Nutella or jam — or savory, as in filled with ham and cheese, or even a warm egg for breakfast.

In Providence, there are two places where you can get good crepes for breakfast: the Rue de l'Espoir on Hope Street, and the Creperie, which is a little hole-in-the-wall on Fones Alley, just off Thayer Street.
The Rue (shown here in an illustration from its web site) is a bistro-style restaurant that has been an East Side favorite for more than 30 years. You can get a bacon, egg, and cheese crepe (as shown in the top photo here), or a number of sweet crepes.

The Creperie is more of a student hangout, open from 10 a.m. to midnight or later every day. There are only a few stools inside, but the crepes are authentically French, available in dozens of varieties (above, in photo), and you can watch them being made while you wait.

Read more about Providence breakfast places in the Providence Journal's Weekend section this Thursday.

Tribal breakfasts II: Nicks

Nicks on Broadway has been a foodie-favorite on Broadway for nearly a decade, always earning raves from the local press and always packed with a hip-looking crowd, a loyal cadre who followed chef/owner Derek Wagner to his present location (in 2006), which is several blocks closer to Olneyville than his original spot on Broadway was.
This is a tribe that loves to tell you that Nick is not Derek's name — it was the name on the real workingman's diner that used to be at the restaurant's first location. And they leap to correct you when you spell Nick's with an apostrophe, which it doesn't have, apparently just to be alternative.

Open for breakfast daily except Mondays and Tuesdays (from 7 a.m., except 8 on Sundays), Nicks has been crowded since it opened and is even more crowded now that it's so much larger. This was the case even during the several-month period last year after the restaurant had moved but didn't yet have its sign up. If you dine out a lot around Providence, you're bound to see people you know at Nicks, maybe even some that you saw dining out the night before.

But more and more, I'm hearing from people that they don't go to Nicks anymore, because it's just too crowded, too noisy, and too expensive. A cup of coffee for $3? Breakfast for two (not brunch, mind you, this is basically eggs, bacon, toast and homefries) for close to $30 with tip?
Last time Retired Guy and I went to Nicks, we were seated elbow-to-elbow with two people who were discussing the intimate details of a loved one's cancer treatment. Our tables were touching, so there was no way that the two of us could avoid feeling like intruders in what should have been a personal conversation.
Every table and counter stool is always occupied at Nicks. On a previous visit, we had been seated at a high table that was squished between the front glass window and the line of people waiting for a table, their elbows continually brushing us.

One of the things I liked about the old Nicks was the easy friendliness of Wagner and the other chefs as they worked the grill just behind the counter. He'd make you an omelet, or mix you up a yogurt parfait, based on ingredients he knew you liked. Back then, you really felt as if you were part of the neighborhood crowd. Now, the grill is so far removed from the counter and the place is so much larger that you never get a chance even to say hello to anyone. I don't recognize the waitstaff and I don't know who's cooking. To paraphrase the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore: It's too crowded."

Tribal breakfasts: Louie's

Whenever I've written about Providence breakfast places, someone tells me I've left out Louis, or Louie's, which is at 286 Brook Street one street over from the Brown University campus. So yesterday I went there again, just to be sure I hadn't missed something. At 10:30 a.m. on a Monday, the place was packed with college students who looked as if they'd just rolled out of bed. One young woman continued a lively discussion with five of her tablemates while she got up to do some yoga stretches in the cramped space between tables. She was wearing that beatific smile common to yoga-people and seemed blithely unconcerned that she was getting in the way of the busy waitress. The background soundtrack seemed to be an Ethel Merman medley, and the students were talking over it as loudly as if they had earbuds in.

Perhaps the secret of its obvious popularity is that Louie's is a no-frills diner-type of place that attracts a mix of tribes that you don't often see together: blue-collar workers and students. Specials include "Barack Your World and Hillary's Delicious Soup," Edamame Xanadu, and plain old Number 2, which is two eggs, bacon, hash browns and a pancake ($5.95).
It's a place where the parking-enforcement guy or campus maintenance man feels just as comfortable as the sociology professor does. You can get breakfast for a few bucks every day of the week, all day, 5 a.m. to 3 p.m.

But as before, I found nothing special about Louie's food. The pancake was fat and flabby with no particular flavor, and when I asked if there was any real maple syrup, the waitress, who was wearing camouflage sweatpants, gestured silently to a plastic bottle of no-name kiddie syrup that was already sitting on the table.

At breakfast time, in particular, people like to be with members of their own tribe, whatever it is: College student or workingman, foodie snob, business-person or mom with stroller. From the number of people that go to Louie's, it's clear that it's a favorite of more than one tribe.

More on Providence breakfasts tomorrow.

Phantom dining Downcity

Going out for breakfast seemed like a great idea yesterday after Retired Guy finished stacking his pine logs and I figured out how to reset the clocks on all the electronics. RG has his rituals, and it's not easy to talk him out of going local for the first meal of the day, but he agreed to drive into the Great Metropolis to try Downcity.
I must have eaten breakfast at the original Downcity a hundred times before it burned down, back when it had different owners and was located a few blocks west on Weybosset, opposite from Johnson & Wales - or, in Rhode Islandese - where the Outlet used to be. Back then, DC had the best breakfast around.
But soon after DC reopened in its new location about a year ago, I went with a friend and was impressed only by its stylish new look, the service being the biggest negative.
Now I had a feeling of deja vu as the same expressionless waiter seated RG and me at the same table I'd had before and left us there with drinks menus but no breakfast menus. After a few minutes, I went up to the bar to ask for menus. "They're on the table," the woman bartender said. I went back and looked again. "Those are drinks menus," I went back to explain to her. "We'd like to order some food."
"The menus are on the back of the placemats," she snapped, as if I were a fool not to think of picking up and turning over my laminated placemat!
Well, it went downhill from there. We last saw the waiter rubbing a waitress's shoulders at the bar and showing no sign of returning to us at all.
So we left. I'm one diner who never hesitates to bail when the winds whisper, "Bad dining experience dead ahead."
But by now we were really hungry. With the time change, it was an hour later than our stomachs told us it was, and every foodie-favorite breakfast place in Providence had a line outside its door. There was nothing for it but to join the masses at Bickford's in Seekonk, proving RG right that there's no place for breakfast like close to home. There were maybe a dozen people waiting in a comfortable area inside the door, but the place is so big and so efficient that we waited no more than five or ten minutes to be seated at a window booth.
Bang! there was the smiling waitress with our coffee, and Bang! RG was off to the $11 all-you-can-eat brunch buffet. His take is pictured below, topped with a pair of chocolate-covered strawberries that he smuggled to me. I ordered from the menu: eggs over hard, crisp bacon, and a waffle ($5.99) with real maple syrup for another $2.
It wasn't the best breakfast I've had, but it wasn't bad. And certainly it put a great big smile on RG's face. He just loves being proved right.