September will mark one year since Bogue’s — one of Birmingham’s most beloved breakfast institutions —abruptly shuttered after 84 years.

The closure was another reminder that the tenure of our city’s favorite culinary gems could end at any time. The next week, I made a short list of six places to grab a great breakfast in the metro area. It wasn’t a hard task. But earlier this summer, when I got the assignment to write about the best breakfast spots in Birmingham for AL.com’s food series, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

The reason: There are so many restaurants that serve great breakfast in Birmingham. And everyone’s breakfast tastes are different. So I made a decision to write a rundown that pays homage to the legacy breakfast joints in Birmingham, while also showcasing the city’s culinary evolution.

I took a similar approach to the method I used to research doughnut shops. I made a list and took some trips to document some of the area’s best breakfast offerings. Luckily, I didn’t have to travel as many miles.

One of your favorite restaurants may be on this list. It’s also possible none of your favorites are on the list. Either way, we hope you’ll agree: Birmingham does breakfast right.

5. SOL Y LUNA

920 Lane Parke Court, Mountain Brook, solylunabham.com

Sol Y Luna is in the midst of its third life. Guillermo Castro, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, opened Sol Y Luna in Lakeview in 1998. The restaurant applied the Spanish concept of tapas to Mexican cuisine. With Sol Y Luna’s small plates and extensive selection of tequilas, Castro quickly redefined and expanded Birmingham diners’ experience with Mexican food. When Guillermo died of a heart attack in 2011, his brothers Jorge and Alex renovated and rebranded the restaurant. But two years later, the pair decided to close the restaurant, marking the end of its nearly 16-year legacy.

In 2020, Jorge Castro and his wife Aimee reopened Sol Y Luna in Mountain Brook. The restaurant initially offered lunch and dinner, but down the line, they added brunch on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Sol Y Luna brunch menu is divided into six sections, including botanas (snacks), ensaladas (salads), tapas, and postres (desserts). The best way to dine at Sol Y Luna (and tapas restaurants, in general) is to order several small plates and experience multiple dishes at once. So when we visited on a recent Saturday, we selected four plates: two savory and two sweet.

Our savory choices: Chicken chilaquiles and huevos y rancheros.

The origins of chilaquiles, a Mexican breakfast and lunch staple, date back to the Aztec empire. Sol Y Luna crafts its dish using hand-shredded chicken with roasted serrano tomatillo, Chihuahua cheese, Crema Mexicana and avocado. Huevos rancheros dates back to 16th century Mexican farmhouses and ranches. The dish was created to be a second meal for farmers who started work in the wee hours of the morning. Sol Y Luna’s version of the dish features a lightly fried corn tortilla served with two fried eggs, refried beans, and a choice of guajillo red sauce or tomatillo green sauce.

For sweet dishes, we chose churros with cajeta (caramel sauce) and crepas de cajeta with plátanos ― crepes stuffed with plantain topped covered with cajeta and chocolate syrup.

Order this: Add two eggs to the chicken chilaquiles and complement it with a plate of crepas de cajeta with plátanos.

4. THE ANVIL PUB & GRILL

611 Doug Baker Blvd #103, Hoover, www.theanvilpub.com

Take a 20-minute drive outside of the Birmingham city limits to Hoover and you’ll find Anvil Pub & Grill anchoring the corner of shops in The Village at Lee Branch. Helmed by Chef Boodram Wilkerson, the restaurant is an upscale British pub with a global twist.

Boodram Wilkerson, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, designed a menu that heavily features his interpretations of Southern, Indian, and Caribbean cuisine.

A good portion of the fare is a nod to Boodram Wilkerson’s Indo-Trinidadian heritage. Anvil is open for lunch and dinner on Tuesday through Saturday. But on Sunday, the pub opens at 9 a.m. to offer a special brunch menu featuring a rundown of British classics and twists on Southern favorites. There’s the fried okra (a dish of cornmeal-crusted fried okra served with harissa aioli) and the English sausage roll (breakfast sausage wrapped in pastry with maple mustard).

But the menu’s standout dish is the Full English Breakfast: A plate of rashers (British bacon cut from the pig’s loin, where the meat is leaner), banger (the British word for sausage), baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, sunny side eggs, and sourdough toast. The dish’s centerpiece is the black pudding—a sausage made by creating a mixture of pork or beef, pig’s blood, and grains. The mixture is then stuffed into a casing and fried.

Here’s a quick history lesson. Trinidad was colonized by Spain in the 1500s. The island was formally ceded to the British in the 1800s. More than a century of British rule made English customs, including food, an enduring part of the island’s culture. Trinidad and Tobago gained their independence in 1962, but the islands are still part of the British Commonwealth.

“I grew up eating black pudding as well as beans and toast,” Broodram Wilkerson told us in an email. “A lot of their cuisine is a part of our food fabric. So it only made sense to have it on our brunch menu.”

Order this: Try the full English breakfast paired with the fried okra.

3. THE ALABAMA BISCUIT CO.

4133 White Oak Dr, Birmingham, www.alabamabiscuit.com

You can find Alabama Biscuit Company nestled into a brick building of shops on White Oak Road in Cahaba Heights behind Miss Myra’s Pit BBQ.

Biscuit recipes are precious to their owners. But for Jonathan Burch, the owner of Alabama Biscuit Company, the key to his biscuits is more about the grain than the recipe. Burch spent years testing ingredients in order to develop a more nourishing buttermilk biscuit, and he’s offered his twist on the staple at Alabama Biscuit Company since 2013. Instead of plain white flour, Burch uses sprouted whole-grain spelt which yields a heartier biscuit with a denser texture. In lieu of a soft, fluffy inside with a slightly crispy crust, the biscuits at Alabama Biscuit Company are thick, buttery, and slightly flakey.

The density of the biscuits mean they’ll hold up better under toppings. That’s a plus at the small batch biscuit eatery, which boasts a menu of biscuits served with sweet and savory options, from gravy and meats to cheeses and house-made preserves. So if you prefer your biscuits simple as opposed to being piled high with garnishes, you’ll be missing out on the full Alabama Biscuit Company experience.

The biscuit section of the menu starts with “Just a Biscuit” (a single biscuit with butter or jam). After that, the offerings get fancier. There’s the “Goat Cheese, Pecan, and Honey” (a biscuit topped with dollops of goat cheese spread, honey, and roasted and soaked pecans) and the “Ham and Cheese” (a biscuit topped with smoked ham and cheddar cheese). Then, there are the specials. The “Bacon du Jour” is a biscuit adorned with house-made peach preserves, sliced peaches, Conecuh bacon, an egg, cheddar cheese, grain mustard, and shaved fennel. The “Tomato Biscuit” is topped with an heirloom tomato, Conecuh bacon, and lemon aioli with herbs.

Fancy a biscuit, but with fixings of your own choice? You can customize your biscuit order. Start with “Just a Biscuit” and buy your toppings a la carte style.

Order this: Try the Tomato Biscuit and add an egg.

2. EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI DINER

3103 Ensley 5 Points W Ave, Birmingham, mississippidiner.com

Photographs line the yellow wall near the cash register at the East of the Mississippi Diner. A large black frame holds black and white photos of players from the Negro Baseball Leagues. There’s Eugene Williams and Willie Mays of the Birmingham Black Barons. And Sam Harrison from the Indianapolis Clowns.

“Pictures tell a story,” the diner’s owner Walter Thomas tells us on a Tuesday morning. Thomas took over ownership of the eatery across from the Five Points West Shopping Center in 2008.

After spending 27 years as a healthcare and food services director, he wanted to own a restaurant. Thomas initially considered opening a spot in former location of Tracy’s restaurant near UAB, until a mutual friend told him about a vacant restaurant space in Five Points West. So he went to survey the area.

“I sort of fell in love with the demographic that I would be feeding,” says Thomas. “And I thought I would be a blessing to this community as well as give them good food products. That’s how I got to buying this diner.”

Estelle Quake helms the kitchen at East of the Mississippi and the menu features all of the Southern Breakfast classics. The Cowboy’s Special features two eggs and a choice of meat. There’s also pancakes, grits, hashbrowns, chicken wings, fried fish, and ribeye steak. But the customer favorite is the salmon patties, which patrons can order either grilled or fried.

“They have taken over,” Thomas said, laughing. “We have an original recipe. And with Estelle being from Cleveland, Mississippi and I’m from Greenwood, we sort of mended our minds together and we came up with this recipe. It is the number one seller for breakfast every day.”

Order this: The salmon patties, with an egg with a side of hashbrowns. Add green peppers onions, and cheese to the hashbrowns.

1. FIFE’S

2321 4th Ave N, Birmingham, fifesbham.com

Fife’s has been serving Birmingham from its location on 4th Avenue North, in the corner lot across from the downtown post office, since 1959. Originally opened by Ernest and Margaret Fife, restaurateur John Kostakis has helmed Fife’s since he took over the eatery in 1989.

Fife’s is an institution and a long-time favorite in Birmingham. In 2002, audiences around the country got a look at the city’s beloved diner when the Blind Boys of Alabama had lunch with journalist Dan Rather during an interview for a segment on “60 Minutes II.” This past February, more than 20 years later, the diner received national attention again — this time for breakfast. Garden & Gun ranked Fife’s on its list of “7 of the South’s Tastiest Breakfast Joints.”

Breakfast at Fife’s starts bright and early at 6 a.m. I arrived around 10 o’clock and sat at one of the numbered booths in the dining area with the rest of the folks having a late-morning meal. Nearby, a table of women laughed and scrolled through their cell phones while they waited for their check. Two elderly men wearing caps made their way to a booth near the front to get a good view of “The Price is Right” on the television mounted on the wall. “Come on!” said one of the men as he beckoned to his friend to follow him, “We can get up close to it.”

Fife’s, down its red-topped tables and vintage letter menu board, is an Alabama classic— and so is its breakfast fare. On the rundown: Plates (a selection of bacon, sausage, ham or eggs served with a choice of grits, rice, hashbrowns, eggs, or toast), omelets (western, meat, or vegetable), sandwiches and biscuits with a choice of meat, and pancake plates (served with bacon, sausage, or egg). On Wednesday through Saturday, Fife’s offers its breakfast specials — salmon croquettes or fried wings with the choice of eggs and pancakes.

Order this: Build a platter with any choice of meat, the creamy scrambled eggs, biscuits, and hash browns.

More on Alabama’s Best Food:

Alabama’s best doughnuts: Our Top 10

Alabama’s best meat-and-three: Our Top 10

Alabama’s best hot dogs: Our Top 10

Alabama’s best ice cream: Our top 10

Alabama’s best burgers: Our Top 10

Alabama’s best pizza: Our Top 10