Brunch is the one meal that is entirely about the company. Nobody brunches alone in a hurry. You go because somebody you like has two free hours and you want to spend them at a table with eggs and a second coffee and no plan for what comes after.

Innsbruck does this well, but with a catch: the good places are small, several close on the days you would most want to go, and a few of them fill up by half nine on a Sunday. Knowing which is which is the whole game.

Ten spots, from a rooftop terrace to a vegan waffle kitchen twenty minutes out of the centre.

SUMMIT & FRIENDS

The Eggs Benedict Everyone Means

When somebody in Innsbruck recommends brunch without being asked, this is usually the name. The hollandaise is properly made, the eggs royal is the order to beat, and the carrot-ginger juice has developed a following of its own.

It is small and it fills fast. Turn up at eleven on a Sunday and you will be standing on Maria-Theresien-Straße waiting. Go at nine and the whole thing is calm.

Maria-Theresien-Straße 49a. Tuesday to Sunday from nine, closed Monday.

WHISPER.INN

Book It, Do Not Chance It

Bright, considered, and one of the newer additions to the city's brunch scene. The menu covers vegan and vegetarian properly rather than as an afterthought, and the cakes are made in house.

One thing to know before you go: reservations matter here. Walking in on a weekend without one is how you end up somewhere else. The strawberries and cream cake is the thing to order when you have room.

Lieberstraße 4. Tuesday to Sunday from half eight, closed Monday.

THE 5TH FLOOR AT THE PENZ

Brunch Above the Rooftops

The top floor of the Penz is a bar in the evening and a breakfast room in the morning, and the morning version is the one people underrate. Exotic fruit, smoked salmon, sparkling wine, and the whole city laid out below the terrace.

This is the one for a birthday, a visitor you want to impress, or a Sunday that needs to feel like an occasion. On weekends breakfast runs until noon rather than eleven, which is exactly the extra hour you want.

Adolf-Pichler-Platz 3. Daily until 11am, until noon at weekends.

CAFÉ CENTRAL

The Old Viennese Way

The oldest café in Innsbruck, and it looks it in the best sense: high ceilings, marble, newspapers on wooden holders, the whole grand tradition intact.

The breakfast menu is enormous, from more than ten kinds of coffee through pastries to hot dishes with eggs and bacon. It opens at seven, which makes it the answer for anyone whose body clock does not do lie-ins.

Gilmstraße 5. Monday to Saturday from seven, closed Sunday.

CAFÉ KONDITOREI PEINTNER

The Sunday Institution

Peintner opens at seven on a Sunday morning, which in a city that mostly shuts down on Sundays is a small public service. There are four different breakfasts to choose between and a pastry counter that will undo any resolution you arrived with.

It is a proper Konditorei rather than a trendy brunch spot, and that is the appeal. Take something home afterwards.

Kranewitterstraße 4. Daily, Sundays from seven in the morning.

SPIRAL

Cinnamon Rolls and Açaí, All Plant-Based

Spiral is fully vegan and makes no noise about it. The trays come straight out of the oven and stay on display, so you order by looking rather than reading, which is a much better system.

Come for the cinnamon rolls in their various versions and the açaí bowls. It is open every day except Monday, Sundays included, which puts it on a short list in this city.

Andreas-Hofer-Straße 7. Tuesday to Sunday from half nine, closed Monday.

CAFÉ NAIV

Worth the Twenty-Minute Walk

Out in Bienerstraße, a proper walk from the centre, and people make that walk specifically for the waffles. Everything is vegan, there are plenty of gluten-free options, and the Irish breakfast has converted a lot of sceptics.

Check the days before you set out. Naiv is open Monday and then Friday through Sunday, and closed in the middle of the week, which catches people out.

Bienerstraße 19. Monday and Friday to Sunday, nine until three.

MAGISTRAT

Two Addresses, Two Different Mornings

The café bar out on Amraser-See-Straße has one of the best ratings in the city and almost none of the tourist traffic, because nobody wanders past it by accident. Breakfast is fresh, the cappuccino is reliably good, and the team is the reason people come back several times a week rather than once. It opens at seven and does not close until late.

The second magistrat sits in the RathausGalerien, right in the middle of Maria-Theresien-Straße. Bigger, busier, and it runs straight from breakfast through to pizza and pasta in the evening, so nobody has to decide what kind of meal this is going to be.

Pick Amraser-See-Straße when you want a quiet morning and a table nobody is waiting for. Pick the RathausGalerien when you are already in town and the group has grown to six.

Amraser-See-Straße 56a, daily from seven. RathausGalerien, Maria-Theresien-Straße 18, daily from eight. Both open on Sundays from nine.

CAFÉ SAILER

A Weekday Kind of Place

Out towards the western edge of the city, with a view over the airfield and a crowd that talks to each other. The warm toasts are the speciality and they are better than a toast has any right to be.

The catch is the opening days: Monday to Friday only. This is a spot for a slow weekday morning or a leisurely home-office breakfast, not for your Sunday plans.

Fischerhäuslweg 14. Monday to Friday from eight, closed at the weekend.

SCHAUPLATS

Bagels, Cake and a Nordic Living Room

This one is not in Innsbruck at all but out in Axams, about twenty minutes away, and it is worth the trip. Nordic in feel, warm in a hygge sort of way, with an interiors shop attached that will cost you money on the way out.

The bagels and the cakes are the reason to go. Two days a week only, so plan around it rather than hoping.

Gries 9, Axams. Friday and Saturday, nine until five.

AND WHEN IT IS SUNDAY

Sunday is the day brunch matters most and the day this city makes it hardest. Open: Peintner from seven, Summit & Friends, Whisper.Inn, Spiral, Café Naiv, both magistrat locations, and the 5th Floor until noon. Closed: Café Central, Café Sailer and Schauplats.

Two rules that will save you a morning. Book ahead wherever you can, especially at Whisper.Inn. And go early rather than late: at the small places, the difference between nine and eleven is the difference between a table and a pavement.

Follow @innsbruck_insights for more spots worth your morning.