Highly Opinionated: A Local Expert’s Favorite Detroit Breakfast Sandwiches #DetroitFood
Detroit is on a breakfast sandwich bender. Since moving here last April, I’ve witnessed dozens of new breakfast sandwiches pop up at diners, bakeries, restaurants, grocery stores, and more. Breakfast sandwiches on biscuits, brioche, bagels, flour tortillas, English muffins, and pita bread. Sandwiches stacked with butchered bacon, stuffed with cevapi, or filled with sausage.
The catalog of breakfast sandwiches in Detroit is as vast as it’s ever been. Prices range from the hearty and expensive ($19 for a steak and egg at Egg Bar) to the straightforward and affordable ($4 at New York Bagel). I’ve been on the beat for the last few months, indulging in eggy, cheesy, soft, squishy, and immensely nourishing egg sandwiches. Both dazzling and unassuming, breakfast sandwiches are a good metaphor for the city of Detroit — working class, but imbued with passion, vitality, and culture. It’s nearly impossible to pick my favorite breakfast sando in the city, but here are three that I keep coming back to.
The Greek rendition: Mitso’s egg and cheese pita
I have tried many iconic breakfast sandwiches across the country — New York’s bacon, egg, and cheese; the various breakfast tacos of Austin and San Antonio; tightly-wrapped breakfast burritos in Southern California; crumbly sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits in Nashville; hoagie rolls stuffed with scrambled eggs and sauteed peppers in Philadelphia and Chicago. I’m here to tell you that the pita, egg, and cheese at Mitso’s should be in the same breath as those other eggy legends. It celebrates hard work, traditions, technique, and affordability — all things that make for a legendary breakfast sandwich.
The egg and cheese sandwich at Mitsos costs $4.50 and features a two-egg omelet with melted American cheese wrapped in a pita. The pita is baked fresh and rendered light, warm, doughy — utterly ethereal. Fresh pita always separates itself from the store-bought stuff, which can be tough, chewy, and dry. From the jump, this was soft and rippable. The fluffy egg was hard on the outside, but still warm and gooey on the inside. It’s the whole package: completely nourishing and affordable.
Pita bread, and more broadly flatbreads, are something that not only binds Detroit’s greatest restaurants, but also the various cultures here — Lebanese, Greek, Yemeni, Chaldean, Romanian, Palestinian, and many more. It just makes sense that it would eventually find its way into the realm of American breakfast foods and all of its cheesy pathways. If anything, I find it a bit perplexing that you can’t get pita and eggs from more places here. I reckon the entire city would embrace such ubiquity.
This sandwich is good while driving, walking, or gesticulating wildly with your hands. It doesn’t slip, spill, or falter. In short, this thing is well put together. It’s got huge mass appeal. I mean, there’s a reason it’s been embraced by Eastern Market, a neighborhood in Detroit known for its working-class vendors. I’m certain one could seamlessly operate a forklift with one hand while eating the breakfast pita from Mitso’s with the other. Forklift or not, go get this thing, which is available seven days a week until 11 a.m.
The homage: Alba’s egg souffle sandie
When I asked, “What’s the best breakfast sandwich in Detroit?” via my Instagram stories, I got at least a dozen recommendations for Alba, a rad (Eater Award-winning) coffee shop on Michigan Avenue in Corktown. Alba’s “egg sandie” is indeed worthy of the hype. It uses an egg souffle, which is laid on a soft, toasted brioche bun, then topped with cheddar, chives, and a spread of chile de arbol aioli. Somehow, this breakfast sandwich only runs $8, which is a steal because it’s as luxurious as it is practical. The sandwich just has good geometry to it; everything is symmetrical, allowing for really even bites (an underrated quality in a good sandwich).
If a breakfast sandwich is judged solely by one’s ability to cook an egg, then you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better sandwich than the one at Alba. Also, the fact that the brioche bun is buttered and toasted scores this sandwich huge points. It’s on the smaller side, but there’s a great deal of fat and flavor here to satiate your hunger. In short, it won’t knock you out, making it a great breakfast sandwich to put in your rotation, as I have. The sandwich itself is an ode to the one previously served at the coffee shop that used to inhabit the space, Astro Coffee.
“We knew when we were taking over the space we almost had to have an egg sandwich. That’s such an iconic piece of Astro history and we knew we had to continue the tradition of a tasty egg sandwich that you [can] just crush in the car or at the cafe. [Something] all-around good, but at the same time different,” co-owner David Valdez says.
Alba has carried the souffleed egg torch proudly, and Detroit’s a better breakfast city because of it.
The diner classic: The egg and cheese sandwich at Norm’s Diner
The sudden appearance of Norm’s Diner in Detroit’s leafy West Village has been a gift. Elise Gallant and Danielle Norman have impressively built a bright and cozy modern diner, one where the food soothes and the coffee never stops coming. At Norm’s, expect fat stacks of pancakes, smashed breakfast potatoes with a cream cheese schmear, crispy chicken cutlets, turkey clubs, and one of the most delicious breakfast sandwiches you can get in Detroit.
The egg and cheese at Norm’s ($13) deserves to be in any Detroiter’s regular breakfast sandwich rotation. This magnificent two-hander features a tall stack of folded scrambled eggs, a sausage patty, and a swipe of pimento cheese in between a squishy, craggy English muffin that’s so big that it needs to be stabbed with a toothpick. The secret to Gallant’s pimento cheese? Her mom’s recipe, which adds spicy jelly for some extra sweet heat. The pimento cheese has a bit of a hot honey flavor to it as a result, and it’s excellent.
Pimento cheese is a popular breakfast sandwich topping right now (See: Marrow’s beef bacon breakfast sandwich in Birmingham, which also features the spread). This is a strong breakfast sandwich, and one that I revisit often. In fact, Norm’s is the place that I come back to more than any other restaurant in Detroit. It offers an impeccable diner experience — something lovely, real, and nostalgic, especially if you sit at the counter, where you’re transported to the congenial diners of years past.
from Eater Detroit
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