Piggy’s Supper Club (161 Winchester, at Sumach, 416-920-2128) Complete brunches for $20 per person, including all taxes, tip and a double Bloody Mary. Average main $8. Open for brunch Sunday 10 am to 2 pm. Reservations accepted. Licensed. Access: one step at door, washrooms on same floor. Rating: NNN Rating: NNNNN
NOW first uncovered this obscure Cabbagetown treasure four years ago, back when it was known as the Winchester Café, a tiny tea room tucked away in the back of the corner shop that sells ice cream cones across from Riverdale Farm. Since then, it’s morphed into Piggy’s. Stranger still, it’s now only open four hours a week.
Little else has changed except for a facelift that’s replaced its period charm overstuffed furniture, grandfather clocks, lace curtains with bland modernity. The same Billie Holiday CDs are still in permanent rotation, though the show tunes that also used to play seem to have been replaced by Norah Jones.
Chef Bernard Dunford’s (ex of the later Idefix on Harbord) Sunday brunch card remains intact as well. My hung-over group virtually inhales a plate of poutine ($5.50) even though it’s little more than frozen fries with cheese and gravy. Oddly, none of them seems remotely interested in his goat cheese salad ($8.25), a quite respectable tangle of mesclun tossed with walnuts, roasted pepper and sliced orange in the inevitable balsamic vinaigrette.
After eating more eggs Benedict in the last year then most do in an entire life (kitchen tip: never microwave leftover poached eggs unless you enjoy explosions), I find Piggy’s rendition ($7.95) more than respectable. Replace the Benny’s peameal with seafood fritters and you’ve got Piggy’s reasonably priced crab cakes ($8.50), though they could be crisper. But by the time you’re through your second double Bloody Mary ($5.50), you won’t even notice.
Gauging by the sparse crowd in attendance this Mother’s Day, surely the busiest date of the year on the brunch calendar, Piggy’s has yet to find an audience.
