Hot Dish: Breakfast Burrito at The Kitchen Table

Head cook Luis Llamoctanta with the popular breakfast burrito at the Kitchen Table in Scotts Corners. Amy Sowder Photo

By AMY SOWDER

Sometimes you want the caviar-beet blini, activated charcoal maple-ginger cocktail, truffle-buttered wagyu filet with 3-D printed culinary flourishes, fermented chanterelle paté or a swoosh of geranium-dotted whipped ricotta. 

Other times you’re just hungry. 

You want something satisfying, soon, and you want it in a friendly, casual environment.

That’s what this breakfast burrito at Pound Ridge’s The Kitchen Table promises: A simple, good dish that’s the No. 1 best-seller, requested almost 100 times a week.

There’s nothing crazy about this burrito. But that’s what makes it so appealing, says Daphne Everett, owner of the café tucked in the Hallmark-level quaint, blink-and-you-miss-it hamlet of Scotts Corners.

“We’re all about accessible, comfort food in a ‘third space,’” Everett says, describing her cafe’s draw as a neighborhood joint where she’s watched customers’ children grow up since opening in 2014. A “third space” is your go-to social setting after your home and work.

This space is also where the head cook, Luis Llamoctanta, and the café manager, McKenna Ryser, have remained since starting at The Kitchen Table a decade ago.

“People need to know how good the breakfast is here. We have crowd-pleasers,” Ryser said. The breakfast menu is served all day, except the brioche French toast, which is available until 11:30 a.m. Then there’s a lunch menu, and on Friday evenings, there’s dinner service.

To see how the burrito is born, head to the closet-sized kitchen where Llamoctanta presides. 

The cafe’s version of “mise en place” for the burrito begins with the lumber-like pile of 1/4-inch thick applewood and smoked bacon made in batches. Then there’s the creamy mound of TKT guacamole, which Llamoctanta makes ahead with fresh avocado, cilantro, tomatoes, onions, lime juice and salt and pepper.

When an order comes in, Llamoctanta cracks two Jones Farm eggs on the edge of the grill and whisks the yolks and whites together with a fork in a bowl. He scoops out some butter and smears it in circles on the already hot grill, which thanks him with a satisfying sizzle. He pours the golden eggy liquid next, which responds with immediate bubbles.

Quickly, Llamoctanta grabs a 12-inch flour tortilla and warms both sides on the grill as the eggs and cheese meld.

“Then you fold it, put it in the tortilla,” he said, using his metal spatula to flip one side to the center, then the other, like a sharply creased button-down omelet shirt. Llamoctanta slips his spatula under the egg to center it on the toasty tortilla, spreading his guacamole and then salsa across the melted cheesy top. “It’s very easy, but delicious,” he says.

A small cup of sour cream from Arethusa Farm in Litchfield, Conn., is the final touch. 

Another appeal to this burrito?

“All the good things are in one place, and you don’t have to think about it,” Everett laughed, “And sometimes the less you have to think about, the better.”

The Kitchen Table is located at 71 Westchester Ave., Pound Ridge.