Lexington has no shortage of breakfast restaurants, but these are the five places I would personally return to when looking for the best breakfast in Lexington KY.
The list includes traditional neighborhood cafés, Southern comfort food, a more polished brunch, and what may have been a truck load's worth of biscuits and gravy. I ranked the restaurants based on which ones I would return to first, but each serves a different type of breakfast.
DV8 Kitchen is easily my favorite breakfast restaurant in Lexington.
I have visited both Lexington locations several times, and the food and service have always been good. I slightly prefer the East Third Street location because it has felt less busy during my visits.
The restaurant has a funky, industrial-chic atmosphere with colorful murals, indoor seating, and outdoor tables. The food is creative, filling, and much better than a standard breakfast café.
My favorite items are the cinnamon rolls, blueberry pancakes, breakfast tacos, and biscuits and gravy. The cinnamon roll is still the star, especially when they have one of their monthly flavors.
For full details about parking, wait times, both locations, and everything we ordered, read my DV8 Kitchen Lexington Review Breakfast With a Purpose.
Doodles Breakfast & Lunch is located in Lexington’s NoLi district and has been serving locally focused breakfast and lunch since 2008.
The restaurant describes its approach as “comfort food with a conscience,” reflecting its use of local ingredients, scratch-made food, and its goal of creating an inviting gathering spot for the community.
I learned more about that philosophy after visiting, but the restaurant already felt local and personal while we were there.
We arrived around 10:30 a.m. There was no wait, and parking was simple because Doodles has a parking lot beside the restaurant.
The interior has a cozy, casual café atmosphere. It feels relaxed and local rather than polished or overly trendy, which suited the food perfectly.
We ordered:
The Pigs & Puffs came with four pieces of bacon over four beignets, finished with fresh fruit.
The beignets were my favorite part of the meal. I am always supportive of adding fried dough to breakfast, particularly when bacon is involved.
The Biscuit & Gravy included scratch-made sausage gravy over a grilled biscuit with two local eggs and a choice of cheese grits or fried potatoes.
The Huevos Rancheros came with two local eggs over corn tortillas with black beans, salsa fresca, salsa verde, sour cream, and lime.
Everything we tried was good, the service was friendly, and the prices felt reasonable for the portions and quality.
Doodles is a good option for someone who wants a local Lexington breakfast with a little more personality than a standard diner.
Biscuit Belly is extremely casual, biscuit-focused, and not pretending to be a light breakfast.
We visited around 11:00 a.m. Parking was easy and free. You order at the counter, choose a table, and the staff brings the food to you.
The interior felt more like a fast-casual chain than a traditional local restaurant, but the food tasted homemade. The service was good, and we did not wait long for our order.
Although Biscuit Belly has multiple locations, its restaurants are concentrated in the South rather than being available everywhere. For someone visiting Lexington who wants a Southern-style breakfast built around biscuits and gravy, it is still a good restaurant to try.
We ordered several items to share:
The Go Getta includes sausage gravy over two large scratch-made biscuits.
The Bonuts are biscuit doughnut holes coated in cinnamon sugar and served with either bourbon cream cheese frosting or berry jam.
The Gravy Train comes with mini biscuits and samples of several gravies, including sausage gravy, mushroom gravy, and smoked Gouda mornay.
The Pancake Corndogs are sausage links dipped in pancake batter and served with sweet maple mayo.
The Love Shack is a panckae topped with Brie, honey, berry jam, fresh berries, and pralines.
The two standouts were the Gravy Train and the Bonuts.
The Gravy Train is a good choice when you want to sample several gravies instead of committing to only one. Since I love biscuits and gravy, this was exactly the breakfast decision-making support I needed.
The Bonuts were the best sweet item we ordered.
My husband and I like to share, and Biscuit Belly works especially well for that. Many of the dishes are rich, so ordering several items for the table lets you try more without each person needing to eat an entire plate.
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Josie’s has a comfortable neighborhood-diner atmosphere in Lexington’s Chevy Chase area.
We visited around 11:00 a.m. Parking was easy and free, with a lot next to the restaurant. Josie’s uses traditional table service, so you are seated, place your order with a server, and the food is brought to the table.
The restaurant is not fancy, and that is not really the point. It feels like a longtime neighborhood café where people return for familiar breakfast plates, friendly service, and food made from scratch.
Josie’s focuses on Southern hospitality and homemade food. The restaurant prepares many items in-house and uses farm-fresh eggs. The menu includes omelets, breakfast plates, eggs Benedict, pancakes, waffles, sandwiches, salads, and burgers.
We tried the biscuits and gravy, breakfast potatoes, cheese grits, thick-cut bacon, and a waffle with berries and fresh whipped cream.
My ratings:
The grits were easily my favorite item. They were rich, cheesy, and much more memorable than an average breakfast side. I would return for those alone.
The bacon was thick-cut and crispy. The only thing that beats bacon like this is candied bacon.
The biscuits and gravy were also good. The waffle was crispy, buttery, and served with berries and fresh homemade whipped cream. It was not an overly creative waffle, but it was fresh and well prepared.
The potatoes were fine, but they were the least memorable part of the meal.
Josie’s does not have as many sweet breakfast choices as some of the other restaurants on this list, but it has a large selection of savory dishes. Plan around an hour for breakfast.
OBC Kitchen feels different from the other Lexington breakfast restaurants on this list.
It is darker, more polished, and has a pub-meets-Southern atmosphere. The restaurant is especially known for its bourbon collection, which fits its strong Kentucky identity.
We visited for brunch around 11:00 a.m. I believe we made a reservation, and there was no wait when we arrived.
Parking was easy because the restaurant has a very large lot. OBC offers traditional table service, and the service was good throughout the meal.
We ordered:
The Chicken and Waffle came with buttermilk-fried chicken cutlets, Bloody Mary spice rub, a Belgian waffle, whiskey-maple butter, hot pepper honey, and pure maple syrup.
The Hashbrown Casserole included local smoked ham, cheese, shredded potatoes, onion, poblano peppers, and spices.
The French Toast Dippers were served with bourbon maple syrup, raspberry-mango jam, and whipped vanilla cream.
Entrées also came with complimentary biscuits and assorted jellies. Honestly, it is hard not to like a restaurant that starts the meal by putting biscuits and jam on the table before you have even ordered anything.
The food was really good, but this was a heavy breakfast.
Almost everything was decadent, rich, or sweet. The chicken and waffle had multiple sweet and savory components, while the French toast dippers came with syrup, jam, and whipped cream.
There was nothing subtle happening at this table.
OBC is a good choice for someone who wants a more indulgent brunch rather than a simple breakfast. I ranked it fifth only because I would personally return to the other four breakfasts first.
DV8 Kitchen is still my clear favorite, but I would return to all five restaurants.
For a first visit, I would start with DV8. After that, choose based on whether you want a cozy local café, a traditional neighborhood breakfast, biscuits and gravy, or a richer brunch.
I would also bring someone willing to share. Breakfast decisions are much easier when no one expects you to choose between biscuits and gravy and something sweet.
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13 creek crossings, a canyon that keeps closing in around you, and a hike I’d genuinely put back on my itinerary, West Fork Trail was the one.
We got to Call of the Canyon at 7:15am and the lot was barely a quarter full. By 12:30 it was 85% full, so if there’s one tip that matters most, it’s this: go early.
The maintained trail is 6.6 miles round trip, mostly flat, mostly shaded, but I kept my regular tennis shoes dry the whole way by hopping across the rocks at each crossing. It’s rated moderate, and honestly that’s about the distance, not the terrain.
Here’s what nobody tells you though ✨ the maintained trail isn’t the end. We changed into water shoes at the official endpoint and kept going another mile straight through the creek, canyon walls narrowing around us the whole time. That extra mile ended up being my favorite part of the entire hike.
5/5 for me. I’d bring the water shoes again in a heartbeat.
Link in bio for the full guide parking, timing, what to pack, and everything I wish I knew before I went 🥾
Two hours, zero regrets. The Pink Jeep Broken Arrow Tour is hands down one of the most fun things we did in Sedona.
Open-air Jeeps crawling over slickrock, backcountry views you can’t reach on your own, and the famous Road of No Return, steep, thrilling, and somehow completely safe the whole way down.
If you’re picking one paid activity in Sedona, make it this one.
You have to do @pinkjeeptours 🌵🚙 Link in bio for the full review.
Dinner beside Oak Creek at Cress, and yes, it’s a splurge, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.🤍
Candlelit tables under the trees, the creek running right beside us, a menu that mixes Arizona ingredients with French technique. We ordered a little of everything: the squash and beet salad, milk rolls with three different butters, sweet potato gnocchi that somehow felt light instead of heavy. Then two desserts because we couldn’t decide. The Vanilla Crème Caramel with Manchego cheese completely stole the show, salty and sweet in a way that sounds strange until you taste it.
Plan on $100–250 for two depending on what you order, and this isn’t the spot for a quick casual dinner, it’s slow, intentional, and worth every minute. Book ahead and ask for a creekside table if you can.
If you’re looking for one unforgettable meal in Sedona, this is it. Link in bio for the full review 🍽️
Sky Ranch Lodge, Sedona. Booked it for the location, stayed for the sunsets.
This is not a five-star resort with ten restaurants and a spa menu the length of a novel. It’s a family-owned boutique hotel on Airport Mesa that knows exactly what it’s good at: red rock views from basically everywhere and one of the best sunset spots in town, private, with maybe four other couples instead of a crowd.
We booked a Premier Rim Room and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Watched the sunset from our own patio one night and it’s still one of my favorite moments of the whole trip.
✨ Six acres of botanical gardens to wander morning and evening
✨ Pool + hot tub that hit exactly right after a day of hiking
✨ On-site food truck for easy breakfasts and lazy room service nights
✨ Complimentary shuttle so you’re not fighting Sedona parking
✨ Robes, slippers, and a staff that felt genuinely happy to help
Two stays in and I’d book it again without a second thought. This is where to stay in Sedona if you want it to actually feel like Sedona.
Thank you to @skyranchlodge for having us, link in bio for the full review 🌵
Four hours on a train through a canyon you can’t reach by car — such a fun experience! We picked the indoor seats with unlimited access to the open-air viewing car, which honestly felt like the only right call. You’re not stuck in an assigned seat the whole time we bounced between the two, snacks in hand, chasing the best light.
The scenery is the whole point. Red rock cliffs, the Verde River, a 734-foot tunnel, historic trestle bridges views most people visiting Sedona never see, because you literally can’t drive to them.
The charcuterie box that comes with your ticket is shockingly filling ✨ so skip lunch at the Copper Spike Café beforehand, save your appetite for dinner back in Sedona.
Four hours with no stops did start to feel long by the end, but the trade-off for scenery like this? Worth it.
Would I ride it again? Yes. Would I buy lunch first again? No.
Link in bio for the full review cost breakdown, what to pack, and exactly how early to arrive 🚂
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