Brunch-Loving Chef Anthony Strong Adds Eclectic Weekend Menu at Prairie

Unlike many of his peers, Prairie chef Anthony Strong is an avowed fan of brunch. “I love working brunches, which is weird for a chef, I know,” he says. “Usually brunch is a four letter word in the industry.” But Strong’s affinity for breakfast bodes well for his new offering at Prairie, which opened last fall in the Mission and serves its first brunch this weekend, just in time for the major brunch-focused holiday Mother’s Day.

Strong, who opened and ran nearby Delfina spinoff Locanda, cut his teeth on Italian cooking. But at Prairie, he’s drawing on wide-ranging culinary traditions (see: dishes like guanciale-wrapped mochi). Brunch continues in that vein (and the guanciale-wrapped mochi are available by day, too).

New brunch items include a yeasted Carolina gold rice waffle (with Anson Mills rice flour) topped with salted maple butter and an optional XO-fried egg. Strong likens that egg to a “spicier, raw-er version of eggs in purgatory.”

Many other dishes, like double-baked goat cheese sformato with English peas, are variations on somewhat-healthy breakfast foods Strong often makes for himself. And he’s also a big fan of Prairie’s new danishes (made by chef Alison Sullivan) with Bellwether sheep’s milk Yogurt and slow-roasted strawberries.

To drink, brunch cocktails like a house kombucha bellini and a gin and sea buckthorn juice cocktail (called “Becky with the good hair”) promise both health benefits and intoxicating effects. The whole new brunch menu is below, available Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.