Description: One of the travel tips I’ve picked up over the years is to enjoy a crowded or expensive place by visiting off hours: have lunch instead of dinner, or have a drink in the bar instead of a meal. Combine that with my favorite tactic of getting out the door and on the trail for sunrise, and the result was breakfast at El Tovar.

This 100-year old hotel remains the Canyon's most prestigious address. Built in 1905 by the railroad, it sits in the middle of the cluster of original structures: the Kolb Brothers’ Studio, Verkamp’s Store, and Bright Angel Lodge. It’s hard to classify the building, which looks like a Bavarian-style precursor to the now-traditional National Park architecture of timber and stone.

The entrance is from the east. The lobby is flanked by gift shops on either side, and a ends with stone fireplace set at an angle on your right and surrounded by deep craftsman-style chairs that are difficult to leave. Across the lobby is a private dining room, rumored to have built to accommodate the ill-mannered Teddy Roosevelt, who had a nasty habit of sitting down to dinner still dressed in his riding duds.

The guest rooms are off to the left and right, and the dining room for the more genteel is straight ahead, a long rectangle running north/south so that the number of seats with a view of the Canyon is rather limited (a shame, given the hotel’s rim-side location). The room has impressive arts and crafts style brass chandeliers, large murals illustrating Hopi and Navajo culture, and dark wood paneling that augments the timbered rafters. If you weren’t continually recalling that you’re dining at the Canyon, you might enjoy the room more: a stone fireplace at the north end (although attractive) takes up one-third of the window space. I kept thinking back to the dining room at Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim, which celebrates its spectacular setting by orienting the room along the rim and then placing picture windows floor to ceiling along the south and west sides.

There’s plenty of tables for two, four or six, so that most of the seating is here. But your job is to ask for a table in the adjoining Canyon Room (or, in my case, to simply luck into one). This small addition to the northwest end of the dining room holds 12-16 tables distributed over three tiers, giving every guest a view of the Canyon in this more intimate setting. Having spent a hour between parking, hoping desperately for some semblance of a sunrise, and returning to my car largely empty handed, I immediately ordered the organic coffee and sat back to examine the menu. Any irritation I felt at the $3 charge for coffee immediately dissipated after the first sip and my first look at the full carafe deposited at my table. The bill, tip included, was a modest $17, not a bad price for a splurge.

The food was fabulous. It was difficult to choose from the strongly southwestern list of Chef’s Specialties: Sonoran-style eggs with chicken & chorizo, a breakfast quesadilla, blackened trout with eggs and potatoes finally lost out to the signature breakfast burrito, which was large enough to feed two. The menu also features a number of unique omelets and plenty of options from the grill. I dawdled over my food, repeatedly scrolling through my pictures of the sunrise, and enjoying the multi-generational family that gradually arrived for their breakfast date. (Not surprisingly, the grandchildren and grandparents easily beat the parents to the table.)

As a finale to our three-day expedition, I returned two mornings later with the whole crew, following a much sunnier sunrise at Mather Point. Our party of 12 was seated (by necessity) in the Dining Room, split between two tables. They all enjoyed the morning as much I did on my first visit, with the conversation and reflection on our experience proving a worth substitute for a view of the Canyon we’d spent the last three days exploring.
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