Is there any phrase sweeter to the American ear than “Breakfast served all day”? Multiply that joy times 10, and you have Portland’s obsession with breakfast. Maybe it’s the drizzle and chill, maybe it’s the constant coffee drinking, but we’re a people who must have our breakfast.

Detour Café performs to that end admirably, in true Portland fashion (local, seasonal ingredients; cage-free eggs; hormone-free meats). On the cleaner, nicer end of things, it’s kind of the anti-Cricket Café. The staff is friendly, the blossom-and-vine-decorated patio is lovely and inviting, and the inside is clean and colorful. Keep it real with lightweight wooden tables and plastic chairs.

There are also similarities to Cricket: breads here are homemade; serve-yourself Stumptown coffee is available, which reminds us of Cricket’s you’re-on-your-own-suckers feeling; and vegans and vegetarians are amply provided for. There’s an invitation to build your own frittata. You can choose from smoked salmon, goat cheese, two types of cream cheese, Manchego, feta, pepper bacon, Italian sausage, pepperoni (!), hot peppers, basil, spinach, and tomato. But we wish the chef had more to say and the customer less; they should know better than us, right?

Also outstanding is French toast made with Detour’s own cardamom bread, soaked in custard and then fried to golden, lovely, and spicy with a topping of warm cherry compote and almonds. Breakfast sandwiches are ample and well balanced, and employ excellent potato bread.

It doesn’t end with breakfast, though; lunch sandwiches are simple but wonderful. Albacore with melted cheddar is classic, greasy-spoon satisfying, but not at all greasy-spoon greasy. Salads are full of fresh greens that play off each other’s natural flavors and are expertly, carefully dressed. Veggie burgers are made in-house and are superb.

This is how to eat breakfast: on the florid patio of a lime-green little house, with nice people who leave you alone and delicious ingredients put together with care.

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