We headed up to Buckhead in Atlanta for brunch at Cafe Sunflower! Here's what we thought about this upscale, vegan brunch spot.
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We are big Cafe Sunflower fans over here. Dave and I have lived in Atlanta for over 20 years, and their dinner menu is one of our faves. But I don't I'd never had their brunch before, which is wild to me.
Dave seems to think that we did brunch there long ago, but I have no memory of that meal. Regardless rectified the situation recently.
Disclosure: We are friends with the family that owns Cafe Sunflower. However, our love of this restaurant began long before we met the owners, and I promise that the opinions below are 100% Dave's and my own!
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The menu
The brunch menu also includes a few items off of the regular menu. Here's the Cafe Sunflower vegan brunch menu from the day we went:
- buffalo lollipops - soy chicken drumstick, Buffalo sauce, and vegan blue cheese made in house
- blueberry pancakes - almond butter, blueberry coulis, and housemade whipped cream
- chicken biscuit - seitan chicken with a sweet orange jalapeño marmalade in our homemade biscuit, side of home fries, kale salad, and tofu scramble
- chicken and waffles - homemade waffle topped with fried chicken seitan, mustard mixed syrup served with housemade whipped cream
- loaded breakfast burrito - tofu scramble, avocado, home fries, sausage, black beans, onions, vegan cheese in a spinach tortilla topped with homemade chipotle sauce and served with sweet potato chips and house made salsa
- tofu Benedict - wheat English muffin, plant based sausage, tofu "egg", and herbed hollandaise sauce, served with mixed potato home fries
- avocado toast - sunflower seed wheat toast topped with avocado guacamole, cilantro, sprouts, home fries, Served with fruit cup and a side of kale tossed in balsamic dressing
- sesame soy chicken - broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, onions, red bell peppers, brown rice, sweet and spicy garlic sauce
- nourishing bowl- organic quinoa, massaged kale, roasted Brussels sprouts, chickpeas, beets, sliced almonds, tomatoes, tossed with our housemade sesame-miso dressing and topped with avocado
- bacon Beyond Burger - Beyond patty, vegan bacon, vegan cheese, shredded lettuce, tomato, white onion, and house pickles with housemade thousand island sauce, accompanied with French fries
The buffalo lollipops, sesame soy chicken, nourishing bowl, and bacon Beyond burger are all regular menu items. The rest is exclusive to their Saturday brunch.
We didn't order the whole menu, so I'm just going to review what we ordered, plus one brunch menu offering that is my favorite dish that they serve, at any time of day!
Buffalo lollipops
Cafe Sunflower's Buffalo lollipops are a regular menu item that I order almost every time we go. It's an appetizer that I often will get as my entree, because it's just so good!
The spicy-tangy sauce is perfection on the plant based chicken drumsticks. And the vegan blue cheese it comes with will blow your mind!
If you're going to deviate from brunch, this is the dish to order! Or get it as a starter to share, if you aren't greedy like I am.
Vegan chicken and waffles
This is one of their signature vegan brunch dishes. Sadie Sink from Stranger Things is a huge fan of Cafe Sunflower's vegan chicken and waffles, and I can see why!
This is what my kid ordered, and he was kind enough to let me try it.
What a treat!
The seitan chicken is nice and tender, and the breading on it is light and crispy. It's perfect paired with a piece of fluffy, Belgian waffle dipped in the mustard maple syrup.
Speaking of! That mustard maple syrup deserves a little bit of attention. It's maple syrup with a spicy edge from mustard powder. The texture is still maple syrupy, but it has this nice bite that is perfect with this dish.
I kept stealing bites of it and even traded the kiddo some of my sausage for more.
Tofu Benedict
Dave and I both got the tofu Benedict, which is another brunch staple.
I loved that it came with some green veggies. If you listen to the pod regularly, you know that I love a veggie with basically every meal. The asparagus was tender but still a bit crisp, and I devoured mine immediately.
The Benedict itself is a bit of a departure from tradition. Instead of Canadian bacon, they pair the tofu "egg" with a Beyond breakfast sausage patty, which y'all know we love.
The real standout for me -- as it should be -- was the hollandaise sauce. The texture was perfectly creamy with a light eggy flavor, that I assume came from black salt. And it was packed with fresh herbs that made the whole dish really special.
The Benedict comes on a bed of roasted white and sweet potatoes, which made it a really filling brunch. We took the leftover potatoes home to snack on!
Pineapple refresher
Each week, Cafe Sunflower rotates different juice specials into their brunch offering, and the pineapple refresher really jumped out at me!
A mix of pineapple, cucumber, ginger, and other juices, this drink is very aptly named! When I think of pineapple juice, I tend to imagine something cloyingly sweet, but this wasn't that at all. The cucumber really brought balance to the mix, and the ginger gave it a warming feeling in your throat that didn't take away from the refreshing vibe at all.
It honestly blew me away!
Overall Cafe Sunflower brunch review
We just loved our brunch experience! Cafe Sunflower is an upscale vegan establishment, but you'd be just as comfortable there in jeans and a t-shirt as in dressy, date night wear.
We were all super happy with the dishes we ordered, and the items we saw on other tables also looked incredible. I can't wait to go back for those blueberry pancakes and for the chicken biscuit!
The biscuit, in particular, looked really good, and I creepily stared at it on someone's plate on our way out. They pile that orange jalapeño marmalade high, y'all! And the tofu scramble it comes with looked next-level, too.
If you're looking for a nice, vegan brunch in Atlanta for a special occasion, I can't recommend Cafe Sunflower enough. The vibe and the food really make this a special place. Don't miss it!
Cafe Sunflower is located at 2140 Peachtree Rd NW in Atlanta. It's in the Brookwood Square shopping center.
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Cadry
Those buffalo lollipops are AMAZING! We had to order them both times we visited during our weekend in Atlanta. David and I both got the chicken biscuits & they were great. I could totally go for that benedict right now, though!
Becky Striepe
Aren't they the best? I'm obsessed with them. I'm glad to hear that the chicken biscuits are as good as they looked. We need to go back ASAP and get them!