Luxembourg

Andrew McConnell and Chris Watson's modern European bar and bistro Luxembourg (named after the gardens in Paris), has already garnered a loyal following with its sophisticated dinners (and serious wine list), and now the men are taking mornings upmarket, opening on weekends for breakfast, or, as it has transpired, brunch. 

"We open from 8am and then go straight through to lunch at midday, when the menu changes over, but we're calling it brunch because we found that people weren't coming at 8am for breakfast, they were coming in at 10.30 and having a more relaxed brunch," Watson says. "Because we're only doing it at weekends, people aren't coming early to have breakfast before work."

The brunch factor means there are less of your "super foods" on the menu, making more room for European bistro fare; happily, there's not a smashed avocado in sight.

"There is a granola on there," head chef Watson says. "We did have a Bircher muesli on as well but since we started doing breakfast about eight weeks ago, I think we've only sold three portions!"

Rightly so, after perusing a menu of baked eggs with spiced tomato, peppers and shanklish ($14/$18 with braised pork hock), toasted crumpets with strawberries and whipped vanilla ricotta ($14) and a ham, raclette and truffle jaffle ($16 and presented on a brown paper bag) it seems churlish to order muesli. 

Other dishes include the bacon roll with house-made brown sauce ($14), the top-selling, hangover-pacifying English muffin with grilled mortadella and green-tomato ketchup ($14), smoked ocean trout bagel with cream cheese and herb salad ($16) and the extraordinary – and extraordinarily large – breakfast of champions: thick centre-cut bacon with clove-studded boudin noir from Moorabbin's meat and game specialists Gamekeepers, huge roasted mushrooms, fried eggs and sourdough toast ($20), which fills the plate, unashamedly leaving no room for even the slightest of garnishes. No pretence here.

"My girlfriend actually said I should put something green on it, that it needs something kind of healthy," Watson says. "But no."

Anyone suffering menu regret can panic-order the Green Juice (apple, sorrel, kale and celery, $6), although a weekend brunch here is better suited to something from the Breakfast Cocktail menu – a Mimosa ($14), a peach Bellini ($15) or the decadent Laherte Freres Ultradition Brut Champagne ($24).

The initial plan was to open for brunch over summer, but Watson says they're going to stick with the new extended hours; expect some new dishes in the coming weeks.

Watson came to Luxembourg from Cutler and Co, and says the move to a simpler menu has been liberating.

"The lunch and dinner menus are different to brunch but it's all challenging in a different way to Cutler because the menu is quite pared back," he says. "Changing the menu at Cutler is really hard, the dishes take a lot of time and work, whereas here we can get whatever produce we can get our hands on that's awesome and not think about it too much."