Hugo’s
25 Lonsdale Road
Queens Park
NW6 6RA
020 7372 1232
by Hashley Brown
Some days are perfect for breakfast, and one that affords you an extra hour in bed (thanks to the farmers/children/daylight savings activists) is pre-destined for greatness.
Heading to Queen’s Park at the behest and recommendation of good friends I found myself not in the aimless NW-nowhere suburb that I expected, but joining an elegant, vibrant Sunday morning community. Stopping off at the farmers market en-route I started the day not entirely unlike a bracing seafront stroll, with an oyster, prised open at the stall, and taken in one fell swoop that cleared both the palette and all memories of the night before.
Pre-prandial seafood excursions completed, and to cut to the point, we came upon Hugo’s. Previously “The Organic Café” and the first Soil Association certified organic café in the UK, this is a gem of a breakfasting venue. Tucked in an old workshop on Lonsdale Road, it has the worn-in charm of a long-standing café that is both homely and successful.
Good black coffee preceded a full English that scored full marks for both ingredients and cooking. The quality of the meat was top-notch, naturally organic, and clearly untampered with. A premium herby sausage was paired with a single rasher of thick cut bacon, which maintained its succulence whilst the fat was rendered to a beautiful golden crunch. Add to this buttery pan cooked mushrooms, grilled tomato, perfectly fried egg on white toast and fried potatoes and you have a gloriously substantial breakfast with more integrity than a prospective Tory leader. With or without an oyster-aperitif this is breakfasting at its best.
1 comment:
A clear “never again” place for me.
If you go to an “organic restaurant” you expect some amount of vegetarian choices, especially if they say so in the Internet.
There were no vegetarian starters and only 2 options for the main course.
The waiter suggested a starter-risotto for 6£ that tasted Ok and was of appropriated size for a starter. The weird thing is that as main course I got again the same Risotto with a pumpkin bed and a very good Sate sauce, whose size was at most for a children’s main course.
The other vegetarian option that I shared with another guest together with the Risotto-II was a veggie-burger far down in taste and consistency than at McDonald’s or Burger King. The cook was probably in a hurry and didn’t even take care to give it a burger form, so that after removing the burned and over-thick bread of poor quality, you rather needed a spoon to eat the spread.
For dessert I chose a sorbet with mango, blackcurrant and lemon. They ran out of mango (my favourite) and substituted it by lemon without reducing the price.
What a pity to have spent 20£ there!
Irene
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