The best brunch in Austin, ranked.
The best brunch in Austin spans reservation destinations, a Sunday dim sum outlier, a Sunday buffet, shaded patios, and all-day counters open midweek.
The best brunch in Austin, ranked for range and not just one neighborhood: the elevated destinations worth a reservation, the shaded patios worth the weekend wait, the Sunday dim sum outlier, the Sunday buffet, and the counters you can walk into midweek. Built from citywide research and cross-checked against the critics and the OpenTable Top 100. For each spot, the one thing to order and the catch: the reservation you need, the patio that fills by noon, the kitchen that closes at three. Updated as places open, move, and close, and the rooms that came off the list are named at the bottom with the reason.
Featured spots can add this badge to their own site, free.- East 6th · $$$ · weekend brunch, reserve01
Suerte
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The brunch that justifies a reservation. Fermín Núñez’s kitchen takes the same masa program that earned a Michelin nod and points it at the morning: chilaquiles, huevos tejanos, a lengua hash, and a confit suadero taco, eaten on the patio over East Sixth. It landed on OpenTable’s Top 100 brunch list for 2026. Treat it as the meal that is the event, not a quick stop.
- Holly (2115 Holly St) · $$$ · Sat-Sun 11am-2:15pm02
Launderette
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Rene Ortiz’s East Austin stalwart, Michelin-listed, and the brunch locals send out-of-towners to. The pull-apart cinnamon buns are the non-negotiable order, with salmon gravlax and buttermilk pancakes close behind. The patio of small white marble tables under blue-and-white umbrellas is half the reason to go. Weekends only for brunch, and it fills, so book ahead.
- Clarksville · $$$ · daily brunch 9am-2:30pm03
Josephine House
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate A cozy cottage in Clarksville and one of four Austin spots on OpenTable’s 2026 Top 100. The lemon-ricotta pancakes with spiced apples and the citrus-cured Scottish lox are the orders. The draw is that it does brunch every day from 9am to 2:30pm, not just weekends, so it is the answer for a slow Tuesday morning that deserves better than a chain. Book it anyway on a weekend, because the cottage is small.
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- South Congress (Music Lane) · $$$ · Sat-Sun 10am-3pm04
Aba
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Eastern Mediterranean brunch on the Music Lane patio off South Congress, and another of the four Austin names on OpenTable’s 2026 Top 100. The move is to brunch family-style: the smoky garlic hummus and the whipped feta spread with wood-grilled pita, then a few mains for the table to share. It is a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant with siblings in other cities, and it runs loud and social, so bring the group that wants brunch to turn into early afternoon. Brunch is Saturday and Sunday only, 10am to 3pm, and parking is the underground garage at Music Lane.
- Bouldin · $$$ · Sat-Sun 11am-2pm05
Mattie’s at Green Pastures
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Brunch in an 1895 farmhouse on oak-shaded grounds, with peacocks that actually wander the lawn. The property has been an eatery since 1946, and this is the special-occasion pick: the Mother’s Day, the birthday, the out-of-town-parents brunch. The food is Southern farm-to-table and genuinely good, but the setting is what you are paying for. Brunch runs Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 2pm, so reserve through Resy and ask for a table near the windows.
- Downtown (303 Red River St) · $$ · Sunday buffet 9am-2pm06
Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The brunch buffet that has outlasted the fashion for them, set in a historic mercantile building on the Waterloo Greenway. Sunday downtown is the buffet, 9am to 2pm, and Saturday is a la carte from 10am to 2pm, with $5 mimosas, $20 mimosa carafes, and $7 Bloody Marys on both. The cooking is Southern comfort food done properly rather than steam-table filler, so go hungry, and reserve, because the room fills and the buffet stops at two. There is a second location out at Avery Ranch in Cedar Park, but downtown is the one with the building. The patio is in the name for a reason, and it holds a place on our list of the best patios in Austin.
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- Downtown · $$$ · Sunday dim sum 11am-3pm07
Wu Chow
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The outlier, and the one to pick when the table is bored of eggs. Wu Chow runs a full dim sum brunch on Sundays: soup dumplings, shumai, char siu, and turnip cakes off the cart, with a Bloody Mulan built on Thai chiles and Sichuan peppercorns. Go with a group so you can order wide, and go Sunday between 11am and 3pm, because that is the only window the dim sum runs.
- East Cesar Chavez (4827) · $$ · Sat-Sun 9am-3pm08
Sawyer & Co
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate A retro mid-century diner doing Cajun food with a Southern twist, or the other way around. The chilaquiles and the grits get the loudest praise, the cocktails are a real menu and not an afterthought, and there is a backyard patio. Prices stay reasonable, which is rare on this list. Weekends get busy from 9am to 3pm, so a reservation helps even though a walk-in usually works.
- Downtown · $$ · weekend brunch, skyline patio09
Gabriela’s Downtown
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The answer to brunch with a view that does not cost a hotel-restaurant tab. A tropical rooftop-leaning patio looking at the downtown skyline, Tex-Mex plates, and margaritas built for a Saturday. It packs out on weekends for a reason. Come for the patio and the skyline, and put your name in before you are actually hungry.
- East MLK · $$ · daily, counter-order10
Sour Duck Market
Photo: Richard Casteel / @dandeliongatherings The casual one you can walk into, any day of the week. An all-day bakery and cafe on East MLK with a big covered patio, a pastry case worth arriving hungry for, and oversized breakfast tacos worth the stop on their own. Order at the counter, grab a kolache while you wait, and sit outside. It is first come, first served, which is the point: good with a group, good with a dog, good with a hangover.
- South Lamar (2043 S Lamar Blvd) · $$ · daily 7am-4pm, kitchen closes 3pm11
Proud Mary
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The Melbourne answer to brunch, and this roaster’s only Texas cafe. It runs an all-day breakfast with table service rather than a counter line, alongside pastries, smoothies, tea, and coffee it roasts itself, which suits a table where one person wants a real plate and the other only wants a flat white. The catch is the clock: the room is open 7am to 4pm every day, but the kitchen stops at 3pm, so a late brunch here turns into a coffee. There is order-ahead takeaway on the cafe’s own site when the wait is long.
- Chestnut (1204 Cedar Ave) · $$ · Thu-Sun 8am-2pm12
Comadre Panadería
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The bakery end of brunch, for the table that wants pan dulce instead of eggs. Mariela Camacho bakes pan artesanal from whole, responsibly farmed ingredients in the big pink building behind Nixta Taqueria, and the menu changes weekly and sometimes daily, so the case decides the order rather than you. It is a bread and pastry counter and not a kitchen, open 8am to 2pm Thursday through Sunday, which makes it an early stop rather than a late one. Prices are not bakery-cheap, and the shop says plainly that this is the cost of the ingredients and a living wage.
What we considered and didn’t include
The things we passed on are part of the value. Documented for editorial discipline.
- Perla’sTemporarily closed. A kitchen fire on September 6, 2026 closed the South Congress dining room, and the restaurant’s own site says a reopening date has not been set yet. It made OpenTable’s Top 100 brunch list for 2026 and it earns its spot back when the doors open, but sending anyone to a dark room in the meantime helps nobody.
- Arlo GreyKristen Kish’s restaurant inside the LINE is a dinner room, not a brunch one. The dining room runs Wednesday through Sunday from 5pm and closes Monday and Tuesday, and the hotel serves its weekend brunch at a different restaurant in the same building. It is worth a dinner reservation. It does not belong on a brunch ranking.
- Hotel buffets and chain brunchesFine in a pinch, and a few hotel rooms do a real spread, but a buffet is rarely why anyone remembers a brunch. We sent you to kitchens that cook to order instead.
- Bouldin Creek Cafe and the vegetarian institutionsGenuinely beloved, and the right call for an all-day veggie breakfast on South First. We left it off this particular ranking because it reads more as an everyday breakfast counter than a weekend brunch, but it earns a mention.
- The 2am taco trailers and the breakfast-taco greatsAustin’s best breakfast tacos are a category of their own, and stuffing them in here would shortchange both lists. They live in the tacos guides instead, which this page links to.
Common questions
- What is the best brunch in Austin right now?
- Suerte, Launderette, and Josephine House are the three most-cited, spanning elevated Mexican, eclectic East Austin, and a daily Clarksville cottage. Four Austin restaurants made OpenTable’s Top 100 brunch list for 2026: Aba, Josephine House, Perla’s, and Suerte, though Perla’s is closed for now after a September 2026 kitchen fire. The full ranked list below adds a Sunday buffet, Sunday dim sum, patios, and counters you can walk into.
- Where is the best brunch in Austin with a view?
- Gabriela’s Downtown is the skyline answer, a tropical patio looking at downtown without a fine-dining bill. Past that, an Austin brunch view usually means a patio rather than a skyline: Suerte looks over East Sixth, Mattie’s sits on an oak-shaded lawn with peacocks on it, and Moonshine and Sour Duck both have shade you can count on in August. Book the sit-down ones on a weekend.
- Where can I get bottomless mimosas for brunch in Austin?
- Bottomless and build-your-own mimosa deals move around, so confirm the current offer before you go. Moonshine publishes the clearest brunch drink pricing of anything on this list, at $5 mimosas, $20 mimosa carafes, and $7 Bloody Marys. Sawyer & Co and Gabriela’s are the other two with a real cocktail program rather than an afterthought, and both are reasonable places to be drinking at 11am.
- Where is the best brunch in South Austin versus downtown?
- South of the river, Aba on South Congress and Mattie’s at Green Pastures in Bouldin are the standouts, with Proud Mary on South Lamar for an all-day breakfast plate. Downtown, Moonshine runs the Sunday buffet, Wu Chow runs Sunday dim sum, and Gabriela’s has the skyline patio. East of the river, Launderette, Suerte, Sour Duck Market, and Comadre Panadería are the destinations.
- Where can I get brunch in Austin on a weekday?
- Josephine House in Clarksville serves brunch every day from 9am to 2:30pm, not just weekends, which makes it the reliable Tuesday answer. Proud Mary on South Lamar runs an all-day breakfast seven days a week until its kitchen closes at 3pm, and Sour Duck Market is open daily. Most of the rest of this list is weekend-only, so a Wednesday morning is closer to a breakfast question than a brunch one.
- Is there a brunch buffet in Austin?
- Moonshine downtown runs the standing one, a Sunday buffet from 9am to 2pm in a historic mercantile building on the Waterloo Greenway, with an a la carte brunch on Saturday from 10am to 2pm. Fonda San Miguel’s hacienda brunch was the other famous buffet in town, and its own menus page currently lists it as temporarily closed. Hotel buffets fill the gap around the city, and they are a convenience answer rather than a destination one.
- Where can I find drag brunch in Austin?
- Drag brunch in Austin is a rotating weekend event rather than a single fixed restaurant. Several Fourth Street and Warehouse District bars and a handful of restaurants host them, with lineups and dates that change month to month. Check current listings for the weekend you want, since seating is usually ticketed and sells out.
- Do I need a reservation for brunch in Austin?
- For the elevated rooms yes, and on a weekend you should book days ahead: Suerte, Launderette, Josephine House, Mattie’s, and Aba all take reservations and all fill. Moonshine takes them too, which matters most for the Sunday buffet. At the other end, Sour Duck Market is first come, first served, Comadre Panadería is a bakery counter, and Proud Mary is a cafe, so none of the three is a booking you plan a weekend around. Sawyer & Co sits in between, where a reservation helps but a walk-in usually works.
- What is the best brunch in Austin for a special occasion?
- Mattie’s at Green Pastures, for the 1895 farmhouse, the oak-shaded lawn, and the resident peacocks. The property has been an eatery since 1946, and it is the Mother’s Day, birthday, and visiting-family brunch. Suerte and Launderette are the other two that feel like an event rather than a meal.
- Where is the best casual or budget brunch in Austin?
- Sour Duck Market on East MLK for a counter-order bakery and cafe with a big patio, and Sawyer & Co on East Cesar Chavez for a reasonably priced diner brunch with real cocktails. Both are walk-in friendly and good for a group. Moonshine is the value pick if you want a full spread, because one Sunday buffet price covers the whole table.
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