The Best Brunch Spots in Palm Springs

Brunch is the meal Palm Springs is actually built for. The light is good, the patios are everywhere, half the town is on holiday, and nobody has anywhere to be until the pool warms up. The problem is that the good places know it, and on a February Saturday you can burn ninety minutes standing on a sidewalk in the sun for eggs.

So here is the ranking, with the queue factored in — because a great plate of food you waited an hour for on a hot pavement is not, in the end, a great meal.

1. Cheeky's — Best Overall

622 N Palm Canyon Drive. Wed–Mon 8am–2pm, closed Tuesdays.

Cheeky's is the best food on this list and it isn't especially close. The menu rewrites itself weekly around whatever's in season, the room is small, the covered patio is the good seating, and it carries a Michelin Guide listing — for a breakfast place, in a small desert city.

Order the bacon flight. It's five strips, five cures, and it's the single most photographed plate in Palm Springs for a reason that turns out to be legitimate.

Now the catch, and it's a real one: no reservations, ever. You check in, you wait for a text, and on a weekend in season that text can take 45 minutes or more. Locals solve this by turning up at 8am sharp or going at 9:30 on a Wednesday, and both work. Note also that the kitchen takes a summer break — roughly the back half of July into mid-August — so don't drive over in high summer without checking.

2. Farm — Best Patio Brunch

6 La Plaza.

Farm serves Provençal breakfast in a walled 1934 courtyard off the main drag, under trees, with fireplaces going in winter. It is the prettiest place to eat outdoors in this city and it does not really have a competitor for that title.

Breakfast and lunch are walk-in only — they only take reservations for dinner, and only for parties of four or more. The upside is that the queue moves honestly. The downside is you cannot plan around it. Go early; the courtyard is small.

3. Wilma & Frieda's — Best Brunch Near Downtown

155 S Palm Canyon Drive, in the Mercado Plaza. Daily 8am–2pm.

Wilma & Frieda's is the comfort-food answer, and the one to pick when you're staying downtown and don't want to walk anywhere. It has been winning local best-breakfast awards for years, and the reason is a menu that commits: the Chicken and Waffle Benny — waffle wedges, fried chicken, poached eggs, maple hollandaise, bacon — is not a small plate and is not pretending to be.

The French toast programme is where it gets interesting. Blackberry custard, banana caramel, and a churro waffle in a cinnamon-sugar crust with vanilla crème anglaise. It is a lot. It is meant to be.

They take reservations, which after Cheeky's and Farm feels like a courtesy.

4. LuLu California Bistro — Best Bottomless Mimosas & Best for Groups

200 S Palm Canyon Drive.

Nobody's calling LuLu the best food in Palm Springs. That's not what it's for. What it is: an enormous, loud, cheerful room with the biggest patio on Palm Canyon, a menu with something on it for every difficult eater in your group, and a weekend three-course prix fixe around $28 a head with mimosa or champagne refills built in.

If you have six people, mixed diets, and one person who wants to be on a patio watching the street, this is the correct answer and everyone will have a fine time. It's also dog-friendly on the patio, which matters more here than in most cities.

5. Norma's at the Parker — Best Splurge

4200 E Palm Canyon Drive, inside the Parker Palm Springs.

Norma's is the see-and-be-seen brunch: an open-air room on the Parker's grounds, all-day service, and a menu that includes a lobster frittata and a Chocolate Decadence French toast, which tells you the assignment. The Jonathan Adler-designed hotel around it is half the point — you're paying for the grounds as much as the eggs.

Two things to know. Reservations carry a booking fee, typically in the $25–$35 range and applied to your table. And the Parker charges a resort fee that has nothing to do with you if you're just eating, but the valet situation will still add fifteen minutes. Budget accordingly.

6. Trio — Best Value

707 N Palm Canyon Drive.

Trio is the Uptown standby: big windows, mid-century room, hearty American cooking, and a curated brunch menu with bottomless mimosas from 11am to 2pm. It has been reliable for well over a decade, which in restaurant terms is its own kind of recommendation. Dogs go on the side patio.

Also Worth Knowing

King's Highway at the Ace Hotel, 701 E Palm Canyon Drive, is a converted Denny's turned retro diner, open 7am to 11pm — useful because it is one of the only good rooms in town serving breakfast food at odd hours.

Grand Central, 160 La Plaza, is the shaded, unhurried option, and it puts out a water bowl for dogs without being asked.

And if you want brunch to be an event rather than a meal, Palm Springs runs one of the best drag brunch scenes in the country — we've covered that separately, because the reservation rules are entirely different.

Reservations Tips

The system here is genuinely inconsistent, so:

• Cheeky's: no reservations. Arrive at 8am or accept your fate.
• Farm: walk-in for breakfast and lunch. Dinner bookings only for four or more.
• Wilma & Frieda's, LuLu, Trio: normal reservations, and use them from November through April.
• Norma's: booking fee applies at reservation.

What We'd Actually Do

Cheeky's on a weekday at opening, no queue, bacon flight, out by 9:15 with the whole day left. Farm's courtyard on a Sunday if it's under 90 degrees. LuLu when there are six of us and somebody's cousin is vegan.

That's the entire strategy, and it has never let us down.