• Jordan Barry
• Cherry-amaro cream doughnut coffee and breakfast wine

In a lifetime of brunches, I have spent more time waiting than I have eating. Some of that is the nature of a weekend morning meal: Getting up early is hard, hangovers are hard, and there aren't many places to go. Squeezing into a packed restaurant as more than a two-top is a headache, whether or not you have the aforementioned hangover.

But for those who plan ahead, May Day cuts the wait. The year-and-a-half-old restaurant in Burlington's Old North End takes reservations for its new brunch service, and it can seat a crowd.

"You have 12 friends, and you all want to go to brunch? We'll take care of you," owner Matthew Peterson said.

Served from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, the brunch takes a leisurely pace, a change from the turn-and-burn common at busy walk-in spots. In already classic May Day fashion, the dishes are shareable, and the wine list is long.

• Jordan Barry
• Hash browns, grilled frisée, polenta and drip coffee at May Day

Chef Avery Buck, who helms the kitchen, joined May Day on July 1. He began his restaurant career at age 14 as a dishwasher at Kevin's Sports Pub & Restaurant in North Bennington, then worked his way up. After a stop at the original Silver Fork in Manchester, Buck landed in Burlington at Hen of the Wood, where he spent two and a half years and met Peterson before leaving for Doc Ponds in Stowe (as sous chef). He returned to the Queen City to work at Burlington Beer; Dedalus Wine Shop, Market & Wine Bar; and, most recently, the Grey Jay.

Early this summer, Buck and Peterson took an eating trip to Montréal, stopping at Vin Papillon, Joe Beef and larrys — an all-day café/wine bar in the Mile End that became the duo's brunch inspiration.

"You can go in and get French fries and bacon and eggs if you want, or you can get mackerel spaghetti with trout roe on top," Peterson said. "Like, where the hell am I? Why are these two things possible?"

Those two things are possible at May Day, too, more or less. The restaurant's very good fries, bacon and two eggs are all listed in the "snacks and sides" portion of the menu, along with deviled eggs, a side salad and chunky hash browns. There's no mackerel spaghetti (right now, anyway), but for an extra $7, diners can make their polenta, steak tartare or grilled frisée pop with briny trout roe.

On a recent Sunday morning, I was after something on the indulgent side, so I started my meal with one of pastry chef Amanda White's daily doughnuts — a punchy cherry-amaro cream combo made with Vecchio Amaro del Capo, which Peterson described as "Italian Fireball."

• Courtesy
• Matthew Peterson (left) and Avery Buck

White is another recent addition to May Day's team. The young chef studied in Lyon, France, and is a "breath of fresh air" for the biz, Peterson said, putting her energy into the rotating doughnut offerings, breads and English muffins.

I paired the fluffy, oozing doughnut with a glass of "breakfast wine" — a Portuguese orange wine from Casal de Ventozela called Contatto ($12), to be exact. The brunch-appropriate sippers skew toward fun pét-nats and easy gamays; all are bottles that Peterson "may or may not have drunk in the morning," he said with a laugh. (May Day's full wine list, also available at brunch, is worth perusing.)

The daytime cocktails developed by bar manager John Hayes include brunch must-haves such as mimosas and a Bloody Mary. The menu also lists a tiki bowl for two (described as having a "buncha booze") and Cinnamon Toast Milk Punch. The latter is an absurd string of words, but the resulting cocktail ($15) — with toasted rye, Old Overholt, the same Vecchio amaro as in the doughnut, Laird's Straight Apple Brandy, lemon, maple and Earl Grey — was balanced and breakfasty in all the right ways.

My husband, baby and I were out for brunch on a brisk, gray fall day, one of the first of the year. The sunshine-yellow coffee mugs full of Brio Coffeeworks' drip brightened things up, as did the cheerful way the May Day staff accommodates kids, of which there were many dining that morning. But the weather had me craving a hearty bowl of porridge.

Added during a recent seasonal menu revamp, the VT Polenta ($15) did the trick. The rich base was made with Nitty Gritty Grain polenta and Jasper Hill Farm's Chef Shred cheese blend. A perfectly poached egg and roasted mushrooms sourced from FUNJ. Shrooming and Sunday Morning Mushroom, a new business from chef Cara Chigazola Tobin and her husband, Willie, topped the dish.

• Jordan Barry
• Crispy chicken sandwich

I strong-armed my husband into ordering the crispy chicken sandwich ($17), having heard about Buck's fried chicken biscuit sandwiches back when he offered one as a special at the Grey Jay. The idea came with him to May Day and became an anchor of the brunch menu. Offered both on the sandwich and in a popular biscuits-and-gravy offering, the biscuits are inspired by Buck's favorite diner dish from the old-school Blue Benn in Bennington.

"I grew up going there, and it's such a special place to me," Buck said. "They have a really awesome dish called the Country Benedict — just a Benedict on biscuits with sausage gravy. Man, I love that."

The towering sandwich that made its way to our table featured a stack of biscuits, hot honey, hot honey butter, bread-and-butter green tomatoes, and cured Fresno chiles on top of a healthy slab of fried chicken — a combo with a little heat but mostly sweet, Buck said. The biscuits crumbled to the plate below, but that's an indictment of biscuits as sandwich bread in general, not these fluffy, imposing biscuits in particular. The dish is rightfully a May Day staple.

"That kind of consistency is how you develop a cult following," Peterson said. "Misery Loves Co. came up with the Rough Francis 13 years ago, and people still ask for it every day."

Whether you're nursing a hangover or timing brunch around nap time — yours or a baby's — it's nice to have things you can count on.