Review: Bluegrass Brunch at High Cotton

What were your first impressions when you arrived? 

Every Sunday from 10AM-2PM, the thick brick walls and heart pine floors of this 19th century building resonate with live bluegrass. Brunch at High Cotton restaurant is a hot ticket—reservations recommended, unless you manage to beat the church crowd and stampede there early. It’s a convivial place divided into four separate dining areas: a cozy, darkly paneled bar where the bluegrass players set up, a rear “French Quarter” room opening to a patio, the more formal “East Bay Room” (the quietest seating, musically), and the grand, sunny main dining room surrounded by street-facing windows.

What’s the crowd like? 

Families, vacationers, couples, locals in their Sunday best: everyone comes. There’s a real energy here—an amalgam of banjo, fiddle, whirling overhead plantation fans, friendly servers, gleaming white tablecloths, conversation, and clinking mimosas.

What should we be drinking? 

Most guests opt for the flight of mimosas: a carafe trio of different fruit nectars (try the peach) with your choice of a full or half bottle of bubbly. There’s also a classic Bloody Mary, of course, with veggie-infused vodka, garnished with crunchy okra and lemon. Coffee, tea, wine, juice, soda, cocktails: however you brunch, High Cotton obliges.

Main event: the food. Give us the lowdown—especially what not to miss. 

It’s a smorgasbord of southern flavor—hard to choose. Crab cakes benedict with Creole hollandaise is a star. The chef riffs on shrimp and grits by adding okra and fennel ladled with a blackened tomato-saffron gravy. Meat lovers go for steak and eggs (twin filet mignon) or the burger with sunny-side-up egg and béarnaise. There’s lighter fare in the form of various tasty salads, but I would guess that’s not why most people come. Brunch is typically an indulgent ritual: crispy fried oysters, buttermilk fried chicken over Belgian waffles, and the like.

And how did the front-of-house folks treat you? 

Lots of youthful, smiling servers here, warm and attentive, expertly trained, as one would expect from any of the Hall Family establishments (and if bluegrass is not your jam, you should consider the Gullah gospel brunch at Hall’s Chophouse).

What’s the real-real on why we’re coming here? 

Bring your family (cinnamon rolls and beignets for kids). Bring your friends. Tap your toes to the upright bass, and feel your mood lift.