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Princess Margaret had the right idea about breakfast. It was a two-hour affair, taken in bed while reading the newspapers before a leisurely bath. The artist Lucian Freud had breakfast at Notting Hill restaurant Clarke’s almost every morning for 15 years, eating pains aux raisins and Portuguese custard tarts with milky coffee that was referred to as a ‘Mr Freud latte’. Often, he would return to the restaurant for lunch. The American writer Hunter S Thompson once described breakfast as ‘a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess’. Four Bloody Marys were, for him, a requirement.
For the rest of us, however, breakfast tends to happen on the hoof, more for practicality’s sake than for pleasure. But perhaps we should take a leaf out of the books of some of the great epicureans and let breakfast be a meal that we linger over.
Happily, trend forecasters have declared that breakfast is back. In January, Borough Market’s annual food and drink report heralded a revival of proper breakfasts. Brunch fatigue has fallen away and now there is a desire to make an occasion out of the first meal of the day. You only have to join one of the Saturday morning queues at a much hyped bakery anywhere from Scotland to Southwark to know that this is true. The crowds at Lannan, in Edinburgh, or Toad Bakery, SE5, come for laminated dough and the chance to make an event of their morning bun.
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In luxury circles, Pavyllon London at Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane has launched a breakfast tasting menu. Your £70 will take you from a lobster-topped croissant pastry to poached eggs with caviar. Meanwhile, the polished silver toast racks and carved butter that might typically have been the preserve of the breakfast room at The Savoy have rarely seemed so chic.
An unhurried and considered breakfast is a glorious thing, whether you are brewing coffee in your kitchen, settling into the Formica corner table of a caff-not-a-café, or – surely the height of luxury – in a hotel room making your way through a carefully curated tray. (It’s important to note that, in this instance, bonus points are awarded for little condiments, because is there anything more thrilling than a tiny pot of HP Sauce?).
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One of the meal’s joys might lie in the fact that it is unavoidably high-low. Whatever the setting, the ingredients remain roughly the same, even if the serveware changes. There is something terribly reassuring about a meal that revolves around a formula. Coffee or tea, eggs, toast, maybe a pastry, butter, marmalade or jam – those are the foundations, whether the toast comes pre-buttered and in a stack on a plate or in a dainty toast rack.
The key to a truly great breakfast, then, isn’t so much the food as the ritual of it. It’s about the time we choose to take over the meal. It’s about setting the table beautifully at home, or booking a table somewhere for a treat. It’s about – from time to time – taking great pleasure in the simplicity of a pot of good coffee and a perfectly boiled egg.
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Where to find the best breakfast around
For sheer old-school elegance, The Wolseley, W1, remains unrivalled. To do it properly, begin with coffee, a caramelised pink grapefruit and some of the kitchen’s delicious freshly baked viennoiserie before ordering the kedgeree with a poached egg. Or go for a decidedly refined take on the full English.
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Open for overnight visitors from April through to October, this Cornish farmhouse on the edge
of Bodmin Moor does the most heavenly breakfasts. Settle into a multi-course affair, including thick yogurt with homemade compote and granola, morning buns and bacon from the farm.
In a world of cinnamon buns, be the anise bun with blood-orange caramel and fennel pollen. Tucked away in south London, Bunhead specialises in flavours rooted in Palestine. Think Mahleb toffee and sour cherry brownies, medjool date buckwheat cookies, and green olive, tomato and labneh buns.
Opened in 1946, The Regency in Westminster these days feels like stepping back in time. It has Art Deco furnishings and absolutely everything you could want, from a traditional full English breakfast with fried bread to scampi and chips. You can even add liver and bacon if you so wish.
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A full English is a great thing, but a full Scottish? The bonus of a tattie scone and haggis is hard to beat. The Mhor 84 motel, off the A84 to the Highlands, has the energy of an American diner but a Scottish palate. If you are journeying through, have a bracing morning dip in the loch and then pile into Mhor 84.
Styling assistant: Diya Pandey. All breakfast dishes pictured are from Gallery, The Savoy’s all-day dining destination.
