Brunch in San Francisco may be a wee bit different from the last time you took Mum brunching on Mother’s Day. This one is called Sunday’s a Drag. It’s in a 1930’s-style supper club called Harry Denton’s Starlight Room on the 21st floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. The room, the setting, the atmosphere are all drag-queen elegant: cut-glass chandeliers, major mirrors, bronze ceilings, too-sweet drinks and spectacular views of Union Square. The hostesses are all tall, thin, attractive young women in black, body-hugging, full-length dresses.
The brunch, itself, is hotel-standard: pretty good, if a bit under-seasoned. But never mind ‚Äî you’re not here for the food. Who‚Äôs here with you? Locals and tourists. Gays and straights. Birthday boys and anniversary couples. Singles and families, teens and elders ‚Äî in short, somebody just like you.
On a given Sunday, four performers strut their stuff: Donna Sachet, Kendra Monroe, Lady Tia and Cassandra Cass. Donna is the emcee. She handles the crowd with consummate skill, teasing the rubes but never ridiculing them. Kendra appears as Superwoman ‚Äî big, bold and kinda scary. Lady Tia ‚Äî well, she fooled me. During her first act, she was all Donna Summers; in her next, pure Whitney Houston. As for Cassandra, she’s a triumphal monument to modern surgery, a dancing definition of trompe d‚Äôoeil.
The crowd loved it, and if you’re up for gender bending on a Sunday morn, odds are you will too.
450 Powell Street; 415 392-7755; www.sirfrancisdrake.com
