Where to go out for Mother's Day brunch?

Well, I did a search on previous topics covering Mother's Day brunches, and although there were a few asking about specific parts of the area (e.g. northwest suburbs), I didn't see anything covering Mother's Day brunches throughout the area. (Although most places that normally serve Sunday brunch do the same thing on Mother's Day, of course.) Anyone who went out for Mother's Day, let us know where you went and how you liked it, and then next year we can find the topic when we're searching for suggestions. I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

one sixtyblue is (IMHO) the very best casual fine dining restaurant in the city, a place where I can go knowing that just about every single dish will scream, "WOW this is great!". They are normally only open for dinner. However, they do one brunch a year, and it's on Mother's Day. We went today, and it was every bit as wonderful as their dinners are. It's a mix of buffet foods and made-to-order foods.

There's a buffet with cold dishes. It had some wonderful salads, including an endive salad with bleu cheese and walnuts with hazelnut vinaigrette, a baby spinach salad with mushroom vinaigrette, and a fingerling potato salad. It had a cheese platter with half a dozen varieties of cheese. There was shrimp cocktail, and house cured salmon. Also a fruit platter.

They turned the counter running along the open kitchen into a serving station. It started with made-to-order omelets with your choice of twenty different ingredients. They had serve-yourself hot dishes including eggs benedict, organic scrambled eggs, the most amazing creme brulee-battered brioche french toast, wonderful thick-cut bacon, sausage, and finally ham crepes (these hot dishes were amazingly fresh for a buffet setup - probably because they were frequently replenished). Then came the carving station including wood-fired beef tenderloin, wood-fired turkey, and wood-fired salmon. At the end of the counter were the obligatory bagels, bread, cream cheese, etc.

In their small private dining room was the buffet setup for additional breads (croissants, muffins, danish) and desserts. Oh, those desserts!!! Their pastry chef is just amazing because their desserts were just heavenly. Even better, the portions were small so you could try as many as you liked. Buttermilk panna cotta topped with strawberry coulis. Coconut crunch, a small piece of cake with a coconut mousse as the top layer and a feuillete crunch as the bottom layer, garnished with white chocolate. Milk chocolate orange cake, a small layered piece of cake with a milk chocolate mousse layer, another mousse layer, and a feuillete crunch layer. House-made chocolate truffles. Two flavors of madeleines - lemon or chocolate. White chocolate cherry ice cream cake. Shortbread cookies for the kids. Mint marshmallows. Little raspberry fruit tarts.

Everything was just terrific. Not cheap, as you might imagine ($65) but for once a year, it was a magnificent feast, and I'll be thinking about it (particularly the french toast) right up until the time I go again next year.

Incidentally, one sixtyblue was not listed among the Mother's Day specials shown on opentable.com - which is odd because they accept reservations on opentable - but they did have information about it displayed on the restaurant's own website.