This Indian American breakfast cafe pours coffee and chai into colorful mugs, sipped by customers while they wait for bowls of coconut milk tikka mole shrimp and grits and plates of crispy pakora waffles smothered in green lentil dal. Masala Lab may serve some of the most intricate breakfast dishes in town, with nuanced layers of flavor and texture. Stick around for a slice of cake, or whatever other rotating dessert sits in the case.

After a long closure, Sweedeedee is back and — if you can believe it — better than before. Now, seasonal fruit compote adds welcome acidity to a custardy and caramelized-sugar-encrusted French toast, a scrambled egg plate sits next to a pile of creamy black beans and bight pickled onions, and DIY sourdough toast comes with a nice selection of pickles and briny accompaniments. The best part of Sweedeedee’s brunch, however, is its all-day add-ons, like tender beet salads with miso and hazelnuts or a scoop of Groundworks Organics potato salad with peak season tomatoes. And leaving without dessert would be criminal. It’s open for indoor and outdoor seating, plus takeout.

This Alberta restaurant splits its breakfast menu between Mexican and American diner standbys, all well-executed. Mole rojo enchiladas come with eggs, chilaquiles arrive with house-made fried corn tortillas, and fluffy omelets filled with fajita-style chicken or green-chile-braised brisket. The restaurant also has a lengthy kid’s menu with pancakes and French toast.

For years, Australian-born coffee roaster and cafe Proud Mary has served eye-catching breakfasts that Portlanders love to Instagram. The pandemic birthed a new era of Proud Mary, one that’s more adaptable to any type of morning. Mornings can involve leisurely breakfasts of rose pavlova with lemon balm cream and ricotta hotcakes with shiso roast peach, or they can be a pork-belly-hash-brown wrap and flat white to-go. Visitors can order takeout via the website.

This Williams bakery makes some of the city’s finest laminated pastries, whether they’re stuffed with meat and sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning, or simply served plain, shatteringly flaky and exceptionally buttery. Any of them would make a phenomenal breakfast, which folks can pair with an espresso or a knockout hot chocolate. It’s always worth it to grab a dessert from the cold case while perusing the other pastries. Jinju is currently open for walk-ins.

This Beaumont charmer of a breakfast cafe delivers the goods: Benedicts topped with everything from cured ham to braised pork shoulder, jammy shakshuka, and an egg-and-cheese on a house buttermilk biscuit. Plus, those looking to live it up mid-week will find a wide selection of bloody marys, spiked coffee, and mimosas.

Pip’s is a Fremont neighborhood favorite for its bite-sized doughnuts, served hot and fresh-fried alongside its number of distinct chais — its honey and sea salt doughnuts are a Portland treasure. But even beyond the doughnuts and tea, Pip’s Original has stood as a leader, supporting local restaurants with its Community Chai fundraisers and speaking out about safely running food businesses during a pandemic.

Bernstein’s Bagels likely makes the city’s best bagel — chewy but not too dense, dotted with little bubbles to indicate the right level of snap. They come with bagel-sized layers of eclectic schmears and as breakfast sandwiches with eggs and prosciutto, ordered for carry-out. It’s best to arrive early, however; these days, Bernstein’s sells out more often than not.

Inside the Glisan convenience store J&T’s Market, Adrian Flores tops cheeseburgers with bacon and eggs, piles plates with huevos rancheros, and ladles bowls of birria de chivo as early as 7 a.m. On the weekends, menudo lands at picnic tables outside the store, sipped alongside horchata and, in some cases, energy drinks from the fridges inside. But for mid-week workers, the selection of breakfast burritos is a real draw, filled with everything from chorizo and potatoes to ham, sausage, and bacon.

Yes, many consider Screen Door a tourist magnet, but since the restaurant opened a new location in the Pearl, brunch has become more frequent, more consistent, and with nowhere near the wait. The classics here — buttermilk fried chicken and sweet potato waffles, praline bacon, griddled brioche French toast with rum-flamed caramelized bananas — are all strong options here, especially when paired with a pickled-okra-topped bloody mary or a cold brew spiked with Crater Lake hazelnut vodka.

Back in the day, Hunnymilk served customizable plates of both sweet and savory brunch items, side-by-side in a single meal. However, during the Year of the Pivot, Hunnymilk switched things up and became something of a doughnut shop: The menu is still a choose-your-own-adventure of sweet and savory dishes, but now its entire menu involves some sort of fried dough. For instance, one meal might involve popcorn chicken-and-waffle doughnuts with a yuzu dip and an apple pie ‘churro-nut’ with whiskey caramel apples and crème brûlée custard. Hunnymilk is now open for dine-in and takeout.

This cozy Buckman cafe tops its chicken and waffles with bacon butter or hot chili honey, serves its baked French toast with maple creme anglaise, and bolsters its house-made corned beef hash with poblanos and perfect poached eggs. The cocktail menu is no afterthought, with a lengthy selection of spritzes and coffee cocktails.

This no-fuss breakfast cafe opened in the ‘80s, but it feels like one of those places that’s been around forever. Here, complimentary scones and jam land at your table before a $6 stack of apple pancakes, or an asparagus-prosciutto scramble, or one of the city’s best renditions of corned beef hash. The coffee is hot and served in a glass mug, the specials board is frequently updated, and the regulars are likely sitting at the counter. Zell’s is open for onsite dining, as well as takeout.

This food cart-turned-restaurant has been a Hawthorne mainstay for years, and with other locations in Pioneer Courthouse Square and the Prost food cart pod, these sandwiches show no signs of stopping. The “Sriracha Mix-A-Lot” — a fried egg with seared ham, avocado, Havarti, tomato, and sriracha — is a typical crowd-pleaser, as well as the classic “Yolko Ono,” a fried egg with pesto, parmesan, sausage patty, and “Magic Egg Dust” spice mixture. Sandwiches can be made vegetarian or gluten-free, and boozy standbys like mimosas are available, as well.

La Osita, the breakfast cart with some of the city’s best breakfast burritos and tacos, is still going strong during the pandemic. The chorizo-stuffed breakfast burrito with a hearty dose of pico de gallo is a smart choice, but it’s hard to beat the “brunch taco,” with thick slabs of bacon and tangy pickled onions. The cart takes walk-up orders for takeout.

Matt’s BBQ Tacos is known for its smoked meat tacos, served in pillowy, Austin-style flour tortillas. But the migas taco — scrambled eggs with cheddar, salsa, and tortilla chips — might be the move for breakfast. The chopped brisket breakfast taco, with potatoes and cheddar, is no slouch, either. With Matt’s new location within the Hinterland pod, visitors can pair their tacos with cocktails from the bar, designed to complement the cart’s food.

This Brentwood-Darlington cafe has been something of a poorly kept secret for weekday brunch, mastering midcentury brunch nostalgia. Yep, Mehri’s has your standard Benedicts, chicken-fried steak and eggs, house-made biscuits slathered in sausage gravy. It also bakes cinnamon rolls and gives them the French toast treatment, stuffs pancakes with fruit compote, and makes the bread for toast in-house. Mehri’s is open for indoor or outdoor dining, as well as takeout.