Brunch: The new eating craze that says more about class than food

Highlights of big brunch pajama party.

Eggs Benedict, Belgian waffles, smoothies in screw-tops jars and mimosas? To some, that might sound like a list of unrelated breakfast options. However, to millennials, middle and upper-class, that sounds like a pretty great brunch.

We like to think we live in a classless society. And to some extent, we do. A lot of class signifiers have disappeared or decreased over time. Take the clothes on our backs, pocket-friendly brands such as Zara, MRP, Mango, and H&M have melded across class barriers – these days, even the Duchess of Cambridge sports Zara pants.   

The gap between the middle and upper-class accent has shrunk, and yet the class war still rages across the food world.

The war on brunch

You may be someone who’s never gone out for brunch, or on the other hand, the person who keeps an alphabetised list of all the best brunch places in town. This mid-morning rather goofy combination of “breakfast” and “lunch” has evolved from “Brunch?” to “Brunch.” To many, with near-religious devotion, going to brunch is less of a question and more of a weekly staple. It’s become a global phenomenon and the effects of its culture can be seen from the bourgeois restaurants the world over to our capital.

However, brunch has long been ripe for ridicule, and today is no different. When you delve into its depths, it becomes so much more than restaurants and food. It’s a cultural institution for the privileged, a socioeconomic indicator, with some going as far as labeling it the opiate of the creative class (middle-class individuals who contribute social capital to society and are connected by shared sensibilities and lifestyles more than income). You might as well be sticking a maple-syrup slathered finger up at the concerns of the real world, like the voracious desert locusts that have descended on us and across the region. 

“Is brunch a class issue? Yes and no,” says Joy Wairimu, general manager, Yummy & Nomad Magazines. She goes on to add: “On the one hand, it can be viewed as a class issue considering a majority of people would not see the benefit of a Sh4,000 brunch. A lot of us have been raised to view breakfast, lunch and supper as distinct meals, and asking them to change their mindset is a tall order. In fact, a good number are often puzzled at the choices offered at brunch and usually stick to eating foods that correspond closest to the time of day it is. 

At the same time, we have to agree that this issue of brunch is the preserve of those in urban centres. And even for those in urban centres, only certain restaurants and hotels offer brunch. So, it could also be a matter of logistics for some. A majority of those people living in rural parts of the country do not have access to this at all. Also, there is no set definition for what constitutes a brunch. If I wake up at 11 am, and I make tea and bread, is that brunch? What if I get hungry in the office and I eat my packed lunch of rice and chicken over my tea break; Is that brunch?”

Unlike yesteryear, where the social experience was held at golf clubs and fancy hotels, today’s brunch culture revolves around a cosseted middle class protected by a glass floor, offering the illusion of stability despite precarious employment and low wages.

While anyone can appreciate a great meal with friends and family, not everyone can afford it. With an All You Can Eat Brunch plus bottomless alcoholic drinks going for Sh4,000, an All You Can Eat Brunch along with bottomless juices, tea and coffee priced at Sh2,500, children at Sh1,500 and free for under 5 years, this out-of-control meal can leave your bellies full and your wallets empty.

A larger group of middle-class survives on contract jobs. Their working lives are precarious. They don’t have money to burn or time to spend. And yet, most under this subset fashion themselves avant-garde as week in they overindulge in a gluttonous amount of food and drink that was once a rarefied custom of the one per cent all in the name of a fairer, more egalitarian society.

However, what it really is, is a status symbol.

How french toast is enhancing the status

“While I can understand why someone would see this as a class issue, I believe that would be oversimplifying a matter that crosses socio-economic strata, and crosses to demographic differences because younger people are more likely to try out things like brunch compared to their older counterparts, and even to logistical matters, and sometimes even just a matter of convenience,” adds Wairimu.

In all its incarnations, brunch has always managed to reflect its time. Today, it’s the ascendance of food. Remember when food was just fuel? Sustenance? Now, it’s a culture, fashion, celebrity – a symbol of who we are, how we live. Just take a look at the wildly outlandish esteem with which we regard what we eat. Was it really “a transcendent food experience”? Is that restaurant really “a national treasure”? Social media is the perfect case study. It’s littered with words like seductive, foodporn, foodgasm, and orgasmic to describe dishes.

By talking about food, we are talking about ourselves. Our devotion to it is born of the desire to advertise our affiliation with the next new thing.

“When food becomes a fashion as it is now, it stops being fuel or sustenance. It becomes a symbol of who we are and how we choose to live our lives,” says Amos Wainaina. He goes on to add: “Globally, there is no meal as polarising. Brunch is a class concept, only practiced by a select few.”

But how did we get here? Brunch wasn’t always this omnipresent, nor this divisive.

“Perhaps it’s a generation thing, I don’t know. I can only tell you what I have seen: Millennials have eschewed the old expressions of affluence – luxury cars and houses for lifestyle experiences like food to create their identity,” says pastry chef Rachel Meja.

The gift that keeps on giving

Surrounded by the chatter of hordes of hungry, well-heeled eaters ready to get day-drunk, the girls and I stand in line outside Milan, Westlands. There we stand for a half-hour before being seated. This wait is mirrored the world over by those anticipating the gravy-soaked dreamed brunch.

Nairobi is a city thriving with eclectic places for the weekend pastime. From Balabu at Mövenpick Hotel & Residence, renowned for its world-class chocolate desserts, Wasp + Sprout - a haven for ricotta pancakes and deconstructed parfait, Lucca at Villa Rosa Kempinski with its array of Italian delicacies such as an extensive antipasto buffet, Larder at Radisson Blu and its wide selection of sushi, tacos, and bottomless sangria, Mercado, where you will be floored by delights from Mehico - tacos, quesadillas and margaritas, Shamba Café with couches you can sink into, About Thyme with its signature breakfast fry up, The Lord Errol where you get to dig into chargrilled beef on a potato bun with mayonnaise and Bloody Mary ketchup, Brioche Café offering a French inspired café fusion cuisine, Brew Bistro with its special of two for one mimosas, Pan Asian Yao with its extensive seafood menu, and Hemingways Nairobi with its limitless Prosecco, among others.  

Brunch is its own kind of religion, a lifestyle, and a lewk. It sometimes rolls out of bed and throws on a clean tee that says something like “Resting Brunch Face” or “You Can’t Brunch With Us” or “You Can Never Have Too Many Mimosas” or “Shut The Brunch Up”. Other times, it hobbles up the sidewalk in flesh-toned stilettos or wears coral-coloured khakis and pocket squares tucked into baby-blue slim-fit blazers.

All of this - the leisurely ways, the bottomless cocktails that are the lifeblood of brunchers (the reason to rise in the morning and the cause for a nap before dinner) – is why every Sunday, it cleaves us into two Kenyas. One Kenya sneers at the drunken sea of urban elites that emerge from restaurants at 4pm to pose for the Gram and, occasionally, to puke in the streets.

The other, brunches.

I sidled up to brunchers at Brew Bistro in the hope someone could explain our deep divide and why we, as Kenyans, feel compelled to brunch so hard?

“It’s the one thing that combines eating and drinking during the day. I also love that you get to indulge in different cuisines in one sitting. While some deem it a luxury affair, it’s affordable in terms of variety. You get to eat as much as you can for less money. It’s also a great alternative to going clubbing. It’s the perfect Sunday plan. I especially love brunching in outdoor spaces. You get to have actual conversations, which would otherwise be difficult in a club,” laughs religious bruncher and lifestyle blogger, Mwende Ngao.   

If we are willing to admit that our Google searches are a reflection of who we are, then brunch has become more popular than ever. The search for a more sociable meal than the traditional laborious post-church meatfest is at an all-time high. It is no surprise, really, given the city’s population has, in the past decade, grown increasingly young and urbane.

As such, the Capital City is the capital of brunch and ground zero for brunch backlash.What was once a meal, where you had to really consider if you wanted to day drink changed when bottomless cocktails, champagnes and beer started flowing readily.

Today, this bottomless culture keeps brunchers drinking for longer hours and lower prices, and with restaurants operating like dominoes, one teetering directly next to the other, the ripple effect can be felt all around. 

Last week, K1 Klubhouse took the lead in reinventing brunch, a Sunday staple to many Nairobians. Enter drunch – (drinking and lunch); simply put, the art of day drinking. With Sh2,000, you kick off the drunchfest with a cold plate menu (granola bowl with fresh strawberries and yoghurt), a mini plate (mini pancakes topped with strawberries and drizzled in icing sugar), a big plate (slow-cooked short beef ribs glazed in barbeque sauce) followed by a pitcher of a half litre of sangria. Why break the wheel when you can reinvent it? 

A meal that should not be innocuous (who can object to chicken and waffle sandwiches topped with candied bacon after a little sleeping in?) has turned into a kind of class warfare. Brunch has taken on a lot of baggage. From the long wait for a table to tired servers and overpriced, middling food, to willfully decadent day-drinking.

“There’s a classy brunch culture, and a not so classy one. A good brunch usually checks all the boxes: Food + booze + a selfie-friendly experience. What else are you doing on a Sunday?” quips Mwende.

For now, the brunch set is living a life of leisure. Every Sunday morning, they roll out of bed hungovered and tired, and saunter their way to a restaurant. The wait staff fight to fill the stomachs of urban Nairobians – the magic formula, platters of food and bottomless drinks for about Sh2,500 per head. I digress.

Should food be an indicator of status? Is it enough to just have social and cultural capital in hand directing your consumption decisions towards what is trending at the time? What about the privilege of time?

Brunch symbolises excess: Consumption, money, and time. It is the one meal where you can have bacon, cake and alcohol. There’s no limit to what you can eat. There’s no judgement. So, should this culture of excess be what warrants critique instead of the meal? I leave that to you.