Peels

Love this place. Worked here for a short time but it still continues to be my favorite brunch spot in Manhattan. The build-​a-​biscuit is amazing, the grits are on point (confirmed by my roommate from Georgia). Like seriously everything on their day menu rocks. And their drink list, ever-​changing with seasons/​trends, can’t be beat. The evening menu is a bit too fine-​dining for my taste so I can never find anything I like, but it’s a great spot for a romantic dinner downtown.
If you’re in the city for one day and you want the stereotypical New York Sunday Brunch experience, this is the place to go.

I liked my overall dining experience here, and the food we ordered was solid, even if it was overpriced (but it’s new york and this place is a hotspot for celebrities. what do you expect?)
I recommend ordering the granola with yogurt. comes in a cylinder jar and the yogurt is so thick, the granola so fresh and so crunchy. yes please! the oatmeal with golden raisins and brown sugar was also great, but… it’s oatmeal. and it was $ 9.
fruit salad was normal, mostly apples and pears that seemed to have been tossed in honey and sugar.
overall good food and seeing Karlie Kloss in person at the same restaurant added to the experience!

Recommends: …
Ordered: Make Your Own Biscuit, Fruit Salad
Spent: ~$ 9 for Make Your Own Biscuit, $ 12 for Fruit Salad
Ok, so basically Peels is best for… celebrity sitings and cute instagram photos. Before this post becomes a post about my new obsession with Karlie Kloss and Josh Kushner, let me just clarify a few things…
It will be love at first site. You will love the cute sign outside, the quaint vintage-​y feel inside, the awesome font on the menu. But then you get the food… the biscuit was cold, gravy clumpy, and the fruit salad had apples that have been sitting for awhile since they were browning a bit. Then with the heft $$$ of it all, you feel quite disappointed. Even x number of likes on my instagram of this meal will not do.
Well, I hope I see Karlie again and we can be best friends so I can show her the lot more stellar eats here in the East Village.

A group of 5 came here on a weekday morning ~10am and there were plenty of seats. At first, the waitress gave us the wrong menus (which were normally for weekends or weekdays after 11am). It was slightly saddening when she came to inform us of them and took them away, to replace those menus with a much smaller menu and selection.
I resigned to get the Build-​Your-​Own Biscuit (with eggs and cheese), plus a chocolate donut. The biscuit was underwhelming. The dish itself seemed very dense and heavy. The donut wasn’t anything special, and it wasn’t THE chocolate donut I was expecting as it was more of a plain donut with chocolate frosting.
Meh.

Went here to briefly hangout before meeting with a friend. Ordered a couple of apps and drinks to pass the time and sat outside to enjoy the weather and the view. So for this niche occasion, would rate a two for the following reasons:
1. service was a tad slow, even though they were finishing up their lunch menu and transitioning into their dinner menu
2. glasses and table were a bit dirty… and they flipped the glasses onto the dirty tables so that’s a oh-​no-​no
3. lots of fruit flies, but from where???
As for the few apps that we got, they served their purpose. I’m sure dining in would be a much different experience so will come back to post an update!

I met a friend of mine for brunch here on a Tuesday. I imagine they get pretty crowded during the weekend brunch hours but it was pretty empty when we went which was perfect as we were able to sit and chat for quite a bit.
First, I wanna say I love the 2^nd floor space. The furnishings along with the plentiful light makes it a perfect morning or lunch destination. It was just lovely. The menu looked great and I built my own biscuit sandwich of eggs and bacon with gravy. It was a yummy savory option. My friend had the fruit salad and a doughnut which was yummy. The cocktails sounded great on paper but I wasn’t too impressed. I’d probably just go with a classic mimosa or a glass of wine next time. The service was fairly standard and the prices are a bit on the expensive side but it’s a lovely spot for brunch.

Breakfast sandwich is definitely delicious. For $ 12, I got a breakfast biscuit sandwich with egg, cheese, bacon, and avocado. Nothing special or particularly creative… but it’s a very solid A+ breakfast sandwich (albeit for $ 12). I thought it was expensive for what it was: really good but ordinary food. Coffee was average, and the donut they’re famous for is a mediocre, standard cinnamon yeast donut. Meh. Excellent service at the bar. The bar stools are uncomfortable, but it lets you avoid the long wait for a table. Went at 10:30am and the wait was out the door.
The boozy brunch drinks looked good, but the brunch menu was on the limited side. Would definitely come back again to try out other things.

We ventured down to the East Village to grab breakfast at Peels, after reading great reviews on Unilocal.It did not disappoint.
The location is quite big, but as it was a Tuesday at 10.30, there weren’t too many people. We sat inside by the bar in a booth.
Peels serves Southern style food — my favorite kind! I’m not a huge breakfast eater, so I ordered from their ‘build a biscuit’ section and had a biscuit with avocado and bacon. The biscuit was perfect; buttery and soft. The bacon was also delicious.
My sweetie ordered the farmers breakfast — eggs, bacon, toast. He also ordered a biscuit with sausage gravy, which he said was delicious.
Would definitely recommend!

I dined here for the first time after having passed by multiple times.
My bf and I finally came here for lunch and we were charmed by the spacious, bi-​level, «modern — country» décor. The restaurant also has outdoor seating around the perimeter which is such a bonus.
The menu is concise yet offers a good amount of various dishes. I saw a few order the build-​your-​own biscuit but from the looks of it, it looks difficult and messy to eat depending on how tall you build!
I ordered the grilled cheese which was simple and clean in it’s construction. Not overly greasy with just the right amount of crispy crunch.
My bf got the fried chicken sandwich which looked more like a fried chicken burger because it comes served on a roll. However, the chicken is thick and breaded then fried real crispy. The dish came served with a heaping side of french fries! I loved the ketchup that Peels offers. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.
Our dishes came out quick and the server never left our cups of coffee empty. I will definitely be back !

Great ambiance, service, and drinks
Probably will skip on the food next time.
Although I would definitely suggest ordering the fried cheese curds (⁵⁄₅) — so good! Gooey, melty, lightly battered and perfectly crispy.
Burger (³⁄₅) — everything in the burger was solid minus the bun which was kind of McDonald’s-esque. Surprisingly, I liked the side salad, dressed with a light but satisfying dressing.
I would pass on the:
Fried spring onions (²⁄₅)
Pâté (²⁄₅) — not partial to thicker chunky pâté. Its flavor was okay… just tasted dry when everything was put together
Biscuits (²⁄₅) — the only saving grace of this dish was the jalapeño jelly. Small crusty biscuits plus bacon = dry.
Kale (²⁄₅) — I know kale is bitter, but something about the way it was cooked accentuated the bitterness.

Brunch on a weekend gets pretty busy here. I recommend putting your name down early and then get get a cup of coffee across the street at Think Coffee.
The restaurant itself is very homey, white/​pale colored, def seems like a girly restaurant. I loved the shrimp and grits dish, it was a really unique and wholesome brunch dish that I haven’t seen at many places. The fried chicken sandwich also looked insane. Though I’m never a huge fan of places with long waits.

While, 3 stars isn’t meant to be a bad thing, it’s not really a good thing, in my opinion of Peels…
I may have been too excited when I saw the fresh kill fried chicken on the menu. It just wasn’t that good. But it wasn’t bad either… And the could have used more seasoning… not the 11 that the colonel uses… Maybe 2 or 3 that isn’t just salt and pepper?
Decent cocktails though. And my friends seemed to enjoy their meal.

I stopped by this restaurant to meet a friend based on the friend’s recommendation. I was excited to see my friend, and after reading reviews, I was excited to try this place. We came for dinner on a weeknight, so I can’t comment about their brunch, but I’ve heard good things about brunch. I wish I could say equally good things about the dinner, but I was a little let down.
When we got to the restaurant, we were welcomed and promptly seated (as I said, it was a weekday evening). The physical space reminds me a little of an urban farmhouse. It has a lot of rustic touches, which I appreciated, and offered a fun environment for our meeting. I sat upstairs with my friend; there were a few too many tables in the small space. It was manageable, but navigating the table maze was a little difficult. I had the corn soup and quinoa salad for dinner. I was happy with the meal, but it really wasn’t anything too memorable. I wish that I could write more about the food, but I thought it was a little overrated.
This place was a nice, relatively quiet place to catch up with a friend, but I think I would have been just as happy grabbing a drink at the bar instead of eating a meal here. As I mentioned, I’ve heard brunch here is delicious, and I’d like to come back for brunch to see for myself what this place can really do.

I’ve only had one experience at Peels thus far, but plan to have many more. This place is super busy, but incredibly we got a table for two in 5 minutes at 12:15pm on a Sunday (karma for sure). The server was had was rude at best, but I guess this is the kind of place where you either deal with the server you get or you don’t eat there (and you sure don’t ask them to do anything custom with your order.)
Their brunch menu is awesome (though as far as I’m concerned could use more sweet options) and the drink menu looks fantastic. Their coffee is delicious. The biscuits & gravy with poached eggs was everything I imagined it would be, and I finished every bite. We were tempted to eat more, but we ate just enough, and I look forward to going back. Quick service, decent cost, lots of options, delicious food = win.

This is a sweet little restaurant, with beautiful exposed wood features and an amazing second level that is both very cozy and trendy at the same time.
I wasn’t as much a fan of the breakfast as I was the décor. To be fair to Peels, this was our last stop on an incredible long weekend of eating our way through the city, so they had a lot to live up to, PLUS I was still full from all the steak, tacos, and sandwiches I had shoved into my face.
I ordered the farmer’s breakfast, which consisted of eggs, toast, bacon, and hashbrowns. My fiancé had the build-​a-​biscuit with eggs, bacon, avocado, cheese, and gravy.
My breakfast would have been perfect if I had a hangover. It was a little too greasy for my already tired tummy, and the house-​smoked bacon was very thick and fatty and kind of chewy. Not really to my liking. The hashbrowns, however, were totally delicious, and were definitely the stand-​out part of this meal. I cleaned my plate, but it all kind of sat very heavy in my belly for the rest of the day.
On the bright side, the fiancé LOVED his build-​a-​biscuit. He was amused when it came because he THOUGHT he was ordering a sandwich, but it ended up being a mound of delicious ingredients with biscuit bookends. Still, it was very edible, and he raved about it for most of the morning.
If we were back in NYC, I would give this a try again. I may have not been in the right mood to completely enjoy this place. It has a lot of charm and potential, and I think that is worth a second chance.

Dear Peels,
You are awesome and here are the reasons why:
DONUT BREAD PUDDING!!! DONUT BREAD PUDDING!!! Peels, you have changed my life forever. I thought bread pudding couldn’t get any better but it just did. The WARM donuts were awesome themselves then combined with warm glaze drizzled over them plus CONFETTI ice cream… I truly have no words. This may have been the best dessert I’ve ever had and I’ve had A LOT of desserts. Unfortunately, it is only a special. Peels, I’m pleading with you, PLEASE make this a permanent menu item. If you do, I will be there everyday!
On a more serious note:
I really don’t understand why Peels gets such mixed reviews. I had a great experience.
The atmosphere is lively and fun. The drinks are tasty and interesting. I particularly enjoyed both the punches. We tried a variety of appetizers, most of which had a decent amount of spice. The crispy cheese curds were awesome! They tasted like fancy mozzarella sticks. The biscuit bites were also good. The mac and cheese was flavorful and well executed. My only complaint is that the portions are quite small so one should definitely order a variety of items. The entrees were decent as well.
Anyway,
DONUT BREAD PUDDING!!!

Peels for me was 3-​stars in a good way. I was happy with my experience and the food. It wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t disappointing. It was just right. Brunch (without cocktails, which seemed to be the popular thing to do) will probably run just under $ 50 for two, including tip.
Despite being told we had a 45 minute wait on a rainy Saturday just after noon, we were seated within 10 minutes, so the wait might not be as bad as it seems. The tables turn over relatively quickly, and there is a fair amount of communal seating upstairs, as well as bar seats up and downstairs, which seems to help move things along.
We had fresh-​squeezed OJ ($ 3/​glass), shrimp and grits with tasso ham gravy ($ 13.25), the fried chicken sandwich ($ 12.75) and a biscuit on the side ($ 3). The shrimp and grits were good and tangy. They had a mild kick that obviated the need to add some of the tableside hot sauces. The fried chicken was tender and moist and had some nice sweet/​sour pickles tucked inside. The sandwich came with a huge plate of fries. One nice touch is the Sir Kensington’s ketchup, which skips much of the ridiculous amount of corn syrup found in mainstream American brands.
The biscuit was my least favorite thing. It might have been good loaded down with savory ingredients like country ham and cheese, but I just used some blackberry jam and found the biscuit a bit dry.
Overall, this is a fun, relatively inexpensive place for brunch and though reservations are taken only for parties of 6+, you will not have to wait too long for a table. I would not come across town to eat here, but if you are in the neighborhood I do not think you will be disappointed.

Came here for brunch with a friend. We were seated upstairs, which we preferred because there is a lot of traffic on the first floor with all the people waiting. I was running a little late for our 11:30am meetup time but once I arrived, I table was just about ready.
I ordered the shrimp and grits based on Unilocal reviews. A+ for presentation – the dish comes with a sunny side egg on top. The dish was a little heavier than I had anticipated for brunch but I guess was expected with the shrimp and grits combination. I wasn’t emotionally ready for the dish and would almost put this in the «lunch» category.
Think I may want to come back – but honestly not sure if anything else on the menu appealed to me.

Peels is really not very good.
The one thing I was pleasantly surprised about when I came for brunch on a Saturday was that there was no wait for a table for two. I kept reading that this place was always packed and there would be a wait, so this was a nice start.
The atmosphere and the place itself are very nice (we were seated on the second of two floors). The problem is that the food is not especially good. And the service was pretty weak too.
We started with the popular Build A Biscuit. We kept it simple and got a fried chicken biscuit. My wife always says the chef should be executed when they make something that I don’t finish, because I will eat everything when we eat out. The biscuit is pretty small, but I still didn’t even bother finishing it. The chicken was a nasty piece of dark meat and was somehow extremely fatty. Both of these are inexcusable qualities when you are getting just one piece. As for the centerpiece of the dish, the biscuit itself, it was extremely dry and not at all flavorful. I guess maybe they want you to load up on the toppings to make a really expensive one to mask the quality (or lack thereof) of the biscuit. But even a plain biscuit should taste way better than this one.
We also got the Gobblecado sandwich (turkey with avocado) and the Ham and Cheddar, both of which came with some Kettle Chip lookin potato chips. Everything on these two plates was cold. I guess that’s how they serve them, but that doest make it right. The sandwiches probably would have been much better if they were served at least warm. And once again, I didn’t even bother wasting myself on finishing the chips as they weren’t even worth it.
I’m glad I didn’t have to wait to get in. Everything I ate was quite disappointing.
Don’t believe the hype.

Neighborhood Gem.
Charming, quaint, homey and where NY hipsters work. This was truly a delightful spot for breakfast.
Peels was recommended to me by a friend as she said it’s her go to breakfast spot when visiting the city. I looked it up and when I saw they had Biscuits and Gravy well, that was all I needed. Peels sits at the corner of 2^nd and Bowery. We dined on a weekday and was able to walk right in. I can see how this place would be jamming on a Saturday or Sunday. I probably wouldn’t try to attempt eating here on those days.
Once seated I could not tear my eyes away from their bakery case filled with everything! Monkey bread, cakes, pies, cookies, muffins, scones and even housemade granola. Window shopping at its baked goods finest.
Of course I got the biscuits and gravy and of course they were awesome enough to switch the poached eggs for scrambled eggs. I’m still not down with the runny egg business. The biscuits were soft, warm and flaky. The sausage gravy had huge chunks of meaty herby sausage. The gravy like at all places, could have been served warmer and the texture was on the thinner side but the flavor was there. I actually enjoyed the sausage smothered scrambled eggs better than on the actual biscuits. I think this is bc they had the most amazing housemade raspberry jam. I think I over jammed my biscuits bc I didn’t want any of it to go to waste.
There was no wow factor to the service but they kept our coffee and water full and our order was taken and check was dropped in a timely manner.
The food was good and the space was cozy so I would totally return on NY visits to come. Hell, if I lived in NY I would just return for the jam.

Restaurant super sympa dans le quartier de Bleecker Street. La déco est adorable, en lambris blanc et vert: ambiance chaleureuse. il y a
deux étages, en bas, on se croirait dans un salon de thé/​pâtisserie cosy, et en haut, il y a une partie bar qui fait de très bon cocktail, à base de vins ou de fruits frais, l’autre partie étant encore des tables pour manger.
On se sent très bien dans ce décor de bois et aux détails originaux comme des lampes ou la vaisselle blanche. Pour le menu ce sont des plats typiquement américain, de l’hamburguer frites à la salade quinoa /​bacon.
Je vous conseille les desserts: des pies magnifiques et énormes, et des glaces, sundays tout aussi généreux ! Vraiment une bonne adresse que m’ont fait découvrir des amis, et qui n’est pas dans les guides !!