I HAVE always been at precisely the wrong life stage to truly understand brunch. Around about the time that early-2010srestaurateurs were turning smashed avocado, sharing pans of shakshuka and “bottomless” day drinking into an unstoppable formula, I was a 29-year-old newish dad, slowly awakening to the fact that early parenthood wasn’t compatible with languorous mid-afternoon meals or the speed-necking of seven mimosas within a rigorously observed 90-minute window.
I was never a teeth-grinding fundamentalist about it; never one to deny strangers the frivolous thrill of challah French toast, a very involved Bloody Mary menu and the encroaching thud of a 4pm hangover. It was more that I had made peace with the fact that, like CrossFit or ethical non-monogamy, it was a millennial obsession that I would never be wholeheartedly partaking in.
