All the world’s a brunch. You don’t believe me? Scan the busy tables while you wait in line. The ages of man are written in eggs and orange juice.

There’s the young couple new to brunch. The early months of love are now behind them, their Sunday mornings no longer spent in a languid reprise of last night’s urgent passion. Instead, they have braved the sunshine, feeling less self-conscious now that they’re sitting down, sharing private jokes and each other’s pancakes.

The years pass and Sunday brunch becomes a habit, a chance to sit and talk away from the distractions of the house, to catch up on the details of their busy weeks. Quality time for couples—but she has brought her cell phone, and he the New York Times.

And here they are again, all but hidden behind a rampart of folded strollers, each taking a turn to eat while the other keeps the children occupied. They are far more relaxed than they would be in the same restaurant after dark, but that is the beauty of brunch: it offers a new way of using an old resource, and it empowers the restaurant-goer. Those waiting in line think nothing of approaching a table where customers linger after the plates have been cleared and making their impatience apparent—such an un-Canadian thing to do. And servers know to expect endless substitutions and instructions when taking an order, partly because we are all such fuss-budgets about how we want our eggs (only the doneness of steak prompts such meticulosity) but also because any intimidation a restaurant may exert at dinnertime dissolves when morning light streams through the window. We can be in and gone in an hour, spend 25 bucks and still have the evening for something less time-consuming than restaurant dining. Even in its most formal manifestation—the grand hotel buffet—brunch encourages a libertarian attitude, with the grown-ups succumbing to greed and the children heading straight for dessert.

My own first memories of Sunday brunch in Toronto, from more than 20 years ago, are very much of that kidney. Kind friends took me to the Four Seasons in Yorkville, where an opulent buffet was set up in the Print Room, next to Truffles—tiered tables of heavily laden chafing dishes and brimming salad bowls, an omelette station, huge trays of seafood, meats and cheeses. The idea was to gorge on shrimp and lobster tails until one had eaten much more than the $25 tab, then fill the last few corners of the appetite with bacon, fruit and bowls of unexpected, flawless vichyssoise.

These days, if that’s your fancy, Le Royal Meridien King Edward has revived the tradition, partly to showcase the restoration of what used to be called Café Victoria. The ugly central dais has disappeared, replaced by a vast carpet in several startling shades of green. In one corner, a pianist plays mellow standards on a rather tinny-sounding baby grand while the sun pours in through the soaring windows onto fanfares of lilies and strategically placed aspidistras. The glory of the enormous space remains the superbly ornate plasterwork on the ceiling and walls, decor that deserves a more imaginative name than the one the hotel chose for the space, no doubt after weeks of debate: The Restaurant.

Some brunchtime customers suit the room: an elderly Rosedale couple, he in an ascot, she in an Hermès scarf; or the blazered Forest Hill patriarch at a table for 10, picking up the bill for his children and grandchildren. Others are more casual: florid men in the sort of colourful sweaters Mr. Costanza wore on Seinfeld, one guy looking scarily dégagé in a track suit of crimson velour.

The cheerful server carving the beef Wellington (good meat, excellent duxelles, a classic sauce poivrade, pastry a tad soggy) plays no favourites. A proper buffet is always an exercise in democracy, with all food groups represented. Of the 80 or so dishes offered ($45 buys all you can eat), the platters of grilled vegetables please me most, and the oysters and smoked fish, the unusually flavourful shrimp, the teacups filled with chocolate mousse. Too many mixed salads rely on raw onion for zip, but the eggs Benedict, despite sitting under a heat lamp, is very hard to fault.

Was that the news you were waiting for? There are people (some of them related to me) who measure any brunch by its Benny. Strip the menu of everything else and they will remain unfazed so long as they can still find benediction. English muffin, a slice of fried ham or peameal bacon, the runny yolk of a soft-poached egg insinuating itself into the golden cape of hollandaise sauce—when all the elements are perfect, there is no better way to eat an egg.