Keith Harris and Andy Sturdevant have been meeting for brunch on Saturday mornings for over a decade. The tradition began when they pledged to work out at the Midtown YWCA every weekend, and decided they deserved a reward after that. Somehow, the workout portion of this arrangement fell by the wayside. But they kept eating, and have probably hit about 30 new restaurants a year since then. And yet, despite each man’s savvy business sense, they have never turned their friendship ritual into salable content. Until now. Welcome to Brunch Buds.
Brunch Date 1.3.25: Khâluna
We’re not sure we even have a brunch budget, but if so we came close to blowing it for our inaugural column. (If not, Keith’ll be doing chores around Racket HQ till 2026.) Khâluna has an excellent rep (Ann Ahmed for is up for James Beard's Chef of the Midwest, if you pay attention to such things) and we figured, why not start 2025 off right?
Keith: So, it's safe to say that you and I are biscuits & gravy connoisseurs (a word I spelled correctly on my first pass), would you agree?
Andy: I would. It truly boggles the mind to consider how many biscuits & gravy dishes we've eaten over the years. Like, hundreds.
Keith: I'll always have a soft spot for the Tilia biscuits & gravy with the smoked egg, which I don't think is on their menu anymore. But I gotta say, the Khâluna b&g is a high entry on my list, thanks in big part to the Lao sausage.
Andy: Tilia's is one of the specific biscuits & gravy dishes I remember really well. Biscuits & gravy is a good brunch dish to order, because if it's done well, it's excellent, and even if it's not that great, at least it's a bunch of salt and carbs.
But I agree, Khâluna is one of the really memorable ones. The only other one that sticks out in my memory is the one at the Turf Club. Remember that six-month period when they were serving weekend brunches about 10 years ago?
Keith: Bring back Turf Club brunch!
The funny thing about biscuits & gravy is, how do you describe the difference between a good b&g and a bad one? It's really basic stuff—a richer sauce that isn't just salted cream, fluffy biscuits, that's about it.
Andy: The biscuits are the main thing, I think. I can improvise an OK gravy at home that's at least as good as the stuff they have in, for example, a hotel continental breakfast bar, but I really have to follow a recipe closely to get good biscuits.
Keith: Yeah I can't even mess with that, I leave it to the pros. And if I remember right, the last time we were at Khâluna we liked the sausage so much we asked if they sold it to-go, since they have a little shop on the premises. They did not.
You had the breakfast fried rice, right?
Andy: Yeah, I did, which was a relatively safe choice. I think this is historically why some chefs don't really like brunch service—I remember this being in the Anthony Bourdain book—is that it's kind of boring to make.
But there's a difference between simple and boring, and the breakfast fried rice at Khâluna is simple, but not boring, because it's also full of Lao sausage. Like, there's so much going on in the breakfast fried rice between the Lao sausage and the pork belly and the seasoning.
Keith: Just add Lao sausage to everything, you can't go wrong.
Would you like to introduce folks to our third brunch bud?
Andy: Ah, yes! That's the major new variable in the brunch plans. My kid—we'll call him "Redacto"—has been joining us for many of the meals, which adds a new question, which is, can I bring a three-year-old to this place and have it be OK?
On a macro trend scale, maybe I'm just more sensitive to it now, but I think brunches were a pretty kid-free zone until relatively recently. But even at a place like Khâluna, which has a fairly intimidating clientele of well-dressed professional women and their friends, it works out fine. The servers like him, and they have the kid chairs, which must mean they're anticipating tiny diners to some extent.
Keith: They didn't even mind when he and I were doing that thing where we pretended our arms were caught in their large decorative vases.
I don't how many kids we'd see in the pre-Redacto days, honestly. Though I feel like if you're bringing a kid to a restaurant, brunch is the best option.
Redacto was a hit overall. Even ordered his own chicken samosas. (Which he did not eat.)
Andy: I did, though. You're eating for two sometimes! But right, brunch is already kind of chaotic. People are drinking champagne drinks and half the people are hungover. I mean, that doesn't excuse wild kid behavior, but the range of acceptable exuberance is broadened.
Keith: Yeah if I had to choose a thinkpiece side I would write "Stop Complaining About Kids at Brunch" instead of "Stop Bringing Your Kids to Brunch." (I do not know for sure if anyone complains about kids at brunch, but I assume they do.) Redacto also loved the edible flowers.
Andy: That's the thing about Khâluna! Everything is so beautiful! That's kind of the magic of the place, that two kind of schlubby distinguished middle-aged dudes and a three-year-old can get in there and not throw the vibes off.
Like, you can have dishes with edible flowers and also have a three-year-old munching on those edible flowers like Annie's bunny crackers, and it all works out.
I do want to say here, though—I know it's Racket's money, but if you do bring your kid to brunch, you should be bulking your tip up. Cute or not, it does add an extra dimension of chaos.
Keith: Overall, the sad conclusion we have reached in our brunch journeys— correct me if I'm wrong—is that while there are lots of great affordable spots, unfortunately, the expensive places are often worth the splurge.
Andy: No, you're absolutely correct. There have maybe been a few places on the expensive side that haven't been that great, but on the whole, brunch is really like the hospitality Olympics. Brunch prep and execution on the parts of both the front and back of house are firing at an elite level when it's working well, and so who winds up with the most gold medals? It's the U.S. and the Soviets.
Keith: Hm, I am too young to "get" your Cold War reference there but I agree with the gist. Any last thoughts on Khâluna, biscuits and gravy, brunch, children, or the Olympics?
Andy: We've been doing this for years! I have a decade's worth of thoughts! No need to get them all out in the open here. All in all, Khâluna is a beautiful space, they make excellent biscuits and gravy, and they should have a shop on the side where they sell Lao sausage.
Keith: Absolutely. Also, I think next time we should go someplace cheaper so people don't mistake us for fancy gentlemen of leisure.
Andy: We are fancy gentlemen of leisure, but we also have lots of bills to pay. So yes, next time we should go to a strip mall in the suburbs.
Brunch is available at Khâluna from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.
