Before breakfast was the first meal of the day, it was part of a midday supermeal—Dinner, Breakfast, Nash, & Young. Give breakfast’s solo work its proper respect with today’s Groupon: for $7, you get $15 worth of hearty breakfast fare at Amore Breakfast in Ogunquit.
Amore Breakfast, a Rachael Ray recommendation, sports a quaint black-and-white checkered dining room where diners dive into hearty morning platters with a New England–style twist. The café accents a classic breakfast menu with seaside flair, such as the Oscar Madison omelette, which marries crabmeat with a gooey swiss cheese that has written its own vows ($9.59). Out on the sunny patio, diners can sample the house specialty of bananas foster french toast, stuffed with cream cheese, coated in pecans, and accompanied by rum-sautéed bananas ($6.99–$8.99). Eggs benedict arrives in its classic incarnation ($7.99) or in the structure of the Amore Benedict ($9.59), in which grilled tomato slices and sausage patties fight for a chance to capture elusive hunger gnomes. To accentuate the meal, house blends from West Coast Coffee Roasters warm up Amore's coffee cups and heat hovering mouths better than steam-powered toothbrushes.
Amore Breakfast
"Food is love" is one of the mottos of Leanne Cusimano, who bustles around the eatery, forging a menu designed to convey that warmth. The scents of breakfasts snapping against skillets drift from Amore Breakfast’s sand-hued cottage exterior, which conceals the gleefully mismatched tables and checkerboard accents of a '50s diner. Servers tote thick slices of french toast stuffed with cream cheese or topped with berries and fluffy omelets enfolding veggies, meats, and cheeses. Wreaths of steam from cups of the house blend coffee encircle them as they bear trays to the dining area.