Eat This Now: Brunch at Oil on Linen, featuring the hojicha palmer
Oil on Linen brunch // photo by Cory Swieczkowski
“Gallery or courtyard?” Even from the hostess’s first question at Oil On Linen, the novelty of eating in an art museum is evident. Each respective choice presents a unique brunch experience at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
Oil on Linen ‘gallery’ // photo by Cory Swieczkowski
As you enter the gallery, the paradoxical descriptors of cozy and elegant come to mind—a diagonal room where every inch of the wall is covered in the paintings of Fredrick James Brown. Instead of the usual quiet contemplation of art, these many frames invite your eyes to bounce from one another. Each of Brown’s 110 paintings is an iconic artistic influence on his own work, and the meal-accompanying pamphlet describes each one in detail.
This provided a fun side activity with Saturday brunch: see how many of the influences we could guess. The results of the game would make my high school art teacher shed a tear (not out of pride).
Oil on Linen courtyard // photo by Cory Swieczkowski
The courtyard, on the other hand, keeps competing aesthetics at play, with descriptors such as industrial and warm. The natural skylight illuminated the concrete expanse—tables, couches, and the bar filled the well-lit space. The spacious area encompassed more of the Kemper Museum’s architectural styling by Gunnar Birkerts (yes, you are even sitting in art). To round out the courtyard, Kevin Townsend’s artwork, set in place (mis en place), was displayed proudlyover the mix of metal and mid-century wooden tables.
As nice as the surroundings were, you can’t eat a setting.
For this weekly brunch, my significant other and I decided to split the infamous portmanteau, brunch, down the middle: one meal for breakfast, one meal for lunch. The eye-catching pop-over benedict was first on the docket.
Popover benedict // photo by Cory Swieczkowski
As the name suggests, it offered a pastry’s take on a breakfast taco bowl. Two poached eggs, chunks of mortadella, and a generous dousing of hollandaise sauce filled the bowl-shaped outline of a popover pastry. The beauty of the doughy base is the option of being smothered or crisp. While the majority is entrenched in rich hollandaise sprinkled with chives, you can still escape to the higher altitudes and enjoy fresh pastry at the edges of the ‘bowl’.
As with Chef Ted Habiger’s other projects, he is unapologetic about the ingredients he uses. The many locally sourced ingredients speak for themselves with bold flavors that come from having such a short journey from farm to kitchen. The unique salty texture of mortadella in the Benedict is highlighted against the pungent chive topping. Everything you love about a traditional eggs benedict, but with a contemporary spin.
Jennifer Maloney reuben // photo by Cory Swieczkowski
The lunch portion was the Jennifer Maloney reuben, named in memory of the previous restaurant’s executive chef, and a side salad. The hot red sauerkraut and thinly sliced wagyu corned beef had me eating a very purple meal. Crisp marbled rye, and a near-perfect ratio of 1000 Island dressing, meat, and cabbage would make any deli connoisseur satisfied.
I have been holding back the restaurant’s ace-in-the-hole. The reason I felt as if I needed to climb atop the Kemper Museum and shout the good word—the good word of the hojicha palmer.
Hojicha palmer and vanilla latte // photo by Cory Swieczkowski
This is a play on an Arnold Palmer with a Japanese green tea. Hojicha on its own offers a wide, earthy base for a drink. Next, layer honey as a sweetener to deepen the muted smoky undertones. Finally, the strokes of fresh-squeezed lemon spike the acidity, which brings the final flavor to a refreshing balance. A steep $7 drink that was well worth its weight in gold, I look forward to enjoying this on a warm spring day in the near future.
Lunch/breakfast, gallery/courtyard, or Arnold Palmer/latte. At Oil on Linen, the juxtapositioned options are as plentiful as they are enjoyable.
Oil on Linen is located within the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art at 4420 Warwick Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64111.
