A Sunday breakfast that’s simply swell

Suzanne Tracht, who has been chef de cuisine at Campanile, executive chef at Jozu and, for the past couple of years, chef-owner of Jar, has a knack for clean, beautifully modulated American cooking. Jar’s menu seduces with fried Ipswich clams, plump little shrimp and crab cakes, fetching butter lettuce salads strewn with breakfast radishes and a gargantuan double-cut organic pork chop.

So when Tracht decides to do Sunday breakfast, I’m there.

In the daytime, light spills into Jar’s open dining room, playing up subtle colors you’d never know were there at night. By late morning, the comfy leather booths along the back wall, beneath the Mark Rothko knockoffs, are already taken. But closer to the window, we can bask in the winter sunlight. A couple seated at a table in the middle have spread out the Sunday paper and are happily reading the sports section and the book review between bites. It’s a fine place for lovers, or for taking the relatives out.

A positive sign: The coffee is strong and good. Fresh-squeezed orange juice comes in tall glasses -- refilled often, like iced tea. The peckish needn’t get nervous; each table gets complimentary old-fashioned coffee cake before anything else.

Ida’s French toast is swell. Made from a dense, egg-y bread, the thick slices are crisp on the outside, moist within. They come showered with powdered sugar and accompanied, of course, by butter and a pitcher of warm syrup. (The real thing. Maple. From Vermont.) Order apple-smoked bacon on the side, and some home fries laced with green pepper and onions, served in a porcelain dish.

Chilaquiles in red sauce embellished with creme fraiche pack some heat and are served up in a generous heap. Tracht’s glorious pot roast makes a second appearance on Sunday mornings as pot roast hash with a pitcher of coffee gravy that sets everything right.

There’s lobster benedict with Tracht’s signature char sui pork and two poached eggs. There are buttermilk pancakes. And if you’re more into lunch than breakfast, you can get a BLT with homemade pickles and fries.

For dessert, coconut sorbet strikes a light note, tasting of fresh, milky coconut. But I wouldn’t necessarily pass up the dreamy banana cream pie or any of the other desserts.

Forget the low-carb obsession and, for once, have a morning that’s fat with pleasure and good things to eat.

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Jar’s Sunday breakfast

Where: 8225 Beverly Blvd.,

Los Angeles

When: Sunday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Info: Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Breakfast items, $6 to $14;

a la carte items, $4 to $5

Info: (323) 655-6566