Toast
121 Nantasket Ave., Hull
781-925-5221
www.toasthull.com
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Charge cards: MasterCard and Visa only
Handicapped accessible
No reservations
The sign on a wall at Toast says it all: “If you are in a hurry, you’re in the wrong place.’’
But the line out the door on a recent chilly morning is equally telling. The food is worth the wait, especially for breakfast aficionados.
Toast, which sits across from Nantasket Beach in Hull, opens at 7 a.m., and serves breakfast until it closes at 2 p.m. You can get eggs any way, pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, and a vast array of omelets. The maple syrup is real, the coffee is strong, and the food arrives piping hot.
We arrived at 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday and the place - which seats 50 - was packed with families, older couples, high school girls, and 20-somethings, all obviously enjoying their meals.
The hostess told us the wait would be 20 minutes, and asked us to stay in the vestibule, but brought us a space heater that she stoked up to high.
With warmth at our feet and the view of the beach and bay, the time went quickly. It was easy to forget that Toast sits on the ground floor of a less-than-lovely condominium high-rise, next to a nail salon and an acupuncturist’s office.
By 11 a.m., we were seated in the cozy dining room, enjoying hot mugs of coffee and cocoa while we perused the extensive menu, which is augmented by specials on a chalkboard.
Toast is comfortable, with yellow walls, grey-flecked formica tables and wooden kitchen chairs, as well as counter seating with bar stools. The walls that aren’t windows facing the ocean are covered with posters, tchotchkes, old kitchen tools, and a framed picture of Cohen’s, the deli that co-owner Audrey Cassevoy’s family ran on A Street until the late 1960s. Her husband, Steve, is Toast’s other owner and chef.
We settled on two of the house specialties: “burnt toast’’ ($7.25), crème brulee-battered French toast with caramelized sugar; and salmon Benedict ($11), cold, smoked Atlantic salmon on toasted English muffins with poached eggs, capers, red onion and hollandaise sauce.
We waited about 15 minutes more for the dishes to get to the table, but the food was hot and obviously fresh from the stove.
The French toast was spectacular - four triangles of bread that were soft and creamy on the inside and crunchy on the outside. The chef dips the bread in the eggy crème brulee mixture and sprinkles it with sugar while on the grill before applying a propane torch to produce the caramelized exterior.