Arthur's Cafe, Kingsland

Arthur’s Cafe
495 Kingsland Rd
Kingsland
E8 4AU
020 7254 3391

by Malcolm Eggs

It was 1935 when Arthur’s opened. Then, like now, the world was in the middle of a nasty economic crisis. It was also the year that Monopoly was first released. People ate sausage and eggs then, and they do in 2008, and they will – barring a sizeable jolt to society as we know it – continue to do so in 2081. And for all the canny allure of the sign out front advertising the cafe’s longevity and the father, son and grandson who have run the place, once you’re inside there is much you will recognise from any other high street cafe – the highly wipe-able tables, a glass counter full of sandwich fillings, the laminated menus.

But there is something more than that here. It’s partly in the presence of the current Arthur himself, a benevolent grey-haired figure, whose service is reserved for those ordering hot meals, and who visibly lifts morale in both customers and staff every time he walks past or says a word. It’s partly in the breadth of the clientele: the jubilant families, the nice old ladies, the sad old rockers, the laughing decorators. But it’s mainly in the near-invisible slickness of this operation, something that can only come with the benefit of seventy-three years of institutional experience – experience which can almost entirely be summed up as: cook it well, make sure it’s hot, know your customers properly.

Having arrived after 11.30, Mabel and I had missed the breakfast menu, so went for the closest lunch option of sausage, egg and chips. Mine was one of two birthdays taking place: the table next door was home to an extended family, gathered around several slap-up lunches and one lucky baby, to celebrate what looked to be happy return number one. The food arrived quickly and for the quarter of an hour it took me to eat it, I was entirely swept up in its hotness and deliciousness. I felt a heightened sense of being alive. If there was a downside it was that my two fried eggs were so flawless they made me momentarily apoplectic, with the countless quacks who've got eggs wrong in the past. The toast was amazing too: white bloomer, and real butter.

During the hazy afterglow I observed the chattering clientele squeezed onto every available seat, and something occurred to me about all these people who sob about things like "the sad death of the local caff". If they removed the spectacles of their foregone conclusions for just a moment, they would see caffs everywhere that are well-run economic units, far better insulated from the coming strife than the little shoots of gentrification – the artisan bakeries and pastiche tea rooms – who ostensibly threaten their existence. Not that places like Arthur’s care, or need to care, what I think about them. I’m willing to bet that they’ll outlast us all.

Breakfasts and Beds: 11, Carey's Cottages, Brockenhurst, Hampshire

11, Carey's Cottages
Butt's Lawn
Brockenhurst
Hants
SO42 7TF
01590 622 276
www.careyscottages.co.uk

by Hashley Brown

Everywhere. Every book, picture, ornament or sculpture is a horse. And if through some thematic slip it's not equine, then it's a bird, or a hippo, or a panda, or a cat, or a dog. But mostly horses. Even the book casually slung by the bath is a novel starring a horse in a dramatic lead. Oh, and when you look out of the toilet window there's even a real horse looking back at you. This is more shrine than BnB, and when you look harder there're even a few religious icons; occasionally crucifixes peer down on the pile of saddles.

Stumble upon this unassuming cottage in the New Forest and it does feel like wandering into the disturbed dreams of a particularly horsey little girl, who also loves all the other animals on God's earth. But once you're past the initial shock, and wondering whether you'll find a horses head in your bed (maybe she shoots them in the face and makes sausages out of their bodies, my drunken comrade pondered) then 11 Carey's Cottages has all the charm of staying in a well-ordered antique shop.

After a deep sleep, undisturbed by horse heads or otherwise, we awoke with a surprising sprightliness that comes only from being hunkered down under freshly heavy blankets in an airy country house. Breakfast was heralded by the chiming of a grandfather clock and the tuneful chirping of a clutch of budgerigars, and the reassuring distant smell of frying bacon. Immaculately presented, the dining room was as far as you can get from generic Ikea-n catering, and the opposite of the over-manicured period guesthouse - it was clearly simply the home of our mildly eccentric host. As well as the oil paintings in the conservatory, and the stuffed magpie peering from behind a door; there was a sense of whimsy about the crockery designs, the jumble of teaspoons were old and monogrammed and from the depths of the last century.

Food was good, and followed the three course breakfast plan. Cereal to start; eggs, bacon and sausage to follow; and rounds of toast, jam and butter to end; and all accompanied by an ever replenished pot of tea. It wasn't the most gourmand of breakfasts I've ever eaten, but it fitted the surroundings so well. Immaculately presented in a homely fashion it made the perfect start to a rainy Sunday. And no, the sausages weren't made from horses.

Diana's Diner, Covent Garden

Diana's Diner
39 Endell Street
Covent Garden
WC2H 9BA
020 7240 0242

by Cher E Jamm

Every now and then, there comes a caff that is so perfect, so dishevelled in all the right places, so masterful in the art of making breakfast, that it makes me just want to fall to my knees and weep hot tears of joy. Diana's Diner is such a place.

It's been sitting pretty on Endell Street, Covent Garden for eons. I, shamefully, had turned my nose up and walked past it for many a year. Today, with my companions - one of whom is eight months with child and craving bacon - I set foot through its fine doors and knew instantly that I had been a fool. Why had I never gone in? Because the bright lights of Covent Garden, with its macchiatos here and its croissants there had lured me away, chewed me up and spat me out onto the pavement - that’s why.

Diana's Diner is not fancy. It doesn't do organic anything. It doesn't serve soya milk, and I suspect that if you were to ask for brown or granary toast, you would be laughed at. It’s full of labourers, clubbers on their way home, white collars on their way in to work and has-been rockstars on their way to nowhere in particular. In the latter category were Danny Goffey and the other guy from Supergrass, sat in matching red Ray-bans, furiously shovelling bacon and egg butties into their increasingly jowly gobs.

To the food. A Full English came with perfect mushrooms with not a bit of slime, two halves of grilled tomato properly cooked with their blackened faces staring proudly from the plate, a sausage that was nice to look at but as with so many sausages these days, tasted of nothing. The bacon – oh, the bacon – was crisp, plentiful, delicious. Beans were hot and the scrambled eggs were fluffy, light and cooked with a panache that is rare in these weary times. Salsa Sally was feeling regal and opted for the Breakfast Royale, more scrambled eggs and a generous portion of smoked salmon on toast. Her only negative observation was that she would have preferred the toast on the side so as to prevent it from becoming soggy. Both meals came with a cup of tea and were modestly priced at £4.50.

The decor was simple: wooden tables and ramshackle chairs, walls filled with framed, signed photos of 1980s stage actors I’ve never heard of. The service was polite and swift. The owner, a cheery Portuguese man kept calling us 'bella', insisting our pregnant friend eat for free. "You are eating for two,” he said. “It is an honour to have you in here”.

Actually, the honour was all ours.

Burger King, Waterloo

Burger King
Waterloo Station
Waterloo Rd
Waterloo
SE1 8SE
020 7261 9492
www.burgerking.co.uk

By Hashley Brown

I think a Spanish man just used his bad English as an excuse to chat me up on the train. Get over yourself, Hashley, I can hear you think, but hell it's been a long morning. So it starts like this: not enough sleep, wake up at 5 to get on a bus to get to Waterloo to go to a wedding. Bus breaks down, twice. Get a taxi. Plus, it's really cold. And all this time the little spark of hope, of longing even, is for the reward, the carrot to the early morning's stick, of a warm satisfying breakfast somewhere en route.

What delusions I harboured. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but somehow I imagined there being a little caff tucked away in Waterloo station, a vendor selling freshly crisped bacon sandwiches and a sturdy cup of tea, in a mug. Phhhhrp. Idiot, Hashley. This is England, where all travel starts with culinary mediocrity. With the chain outlet, but one that's only ever found in train stations. Mmm, Whistlestop, Pumpkin, Delice de France, generic 'pub' that looks as if it hosts half of the BNP list and err, Burger King. Seriously people, this was not a choice I wanted to make. But I hate those little kiosks with their insipid baguettes more than life itself. The bastards bombard every regional rail passenger with dressed up cheese rolls of such horrifying dullness that they surely warp travellers expectations of 'continental' cuisine to the point that they join UKIP. No wonder we haven't really become part of Europe.

So there I was ordering a bacon and egg butty value meal in Burger King. The bacon was thick cut something but tasted only of artificial 'smoky' flavour, the scrambled egg disc had a texture like upholstery foam, and the butty was of that spineless corn-dusted sort whose extreme softness endears it only to the elderly and teething children. It did come with a portion of mini hash-browns which were greasily satisfying and the ketchup at least was Heinz, but it was a thoroughly underwhelming experience.

At least the tea, served bag in, was nice.

La Liaison, South Kensington

La Liaison
Gloucester Road Underground Station
Gloucester Rd
South Kensington
SW7 4SF
020 7370 3189

by Bob El Ensquique

Me and the day got off on the wrong foot. I woke up late, had nothing clean to wear, and mice had burrowed into my last few slices of Hovis. To top it off, I missed my stop on the underground. It was as I reluctantly arrived at Gloucester Road that I noticed the cafe embedded into the side of the station. I had nothing to lose. After having my face nestled in a stranger's armpit, it seemed the perfect place for a pit stop from the rat race.

As I waited at the counter, I found myself being awkwardly drawn in to a conversation between the proprietor and a regular about Morrocans and Peruvians. They kept catching my eye as they spoke, as if expecting me to contribute. So I piped up: "Tangiers is somewhere I'm quite keen to visit". The pair rolled their eyes. Whoops.

Having ruined their chat, I decided to get on with ordering. With no veggie option chalked on the menu board, I asked whether I could have a Full English sans-meat. "Certainly, sir!" chirped the elderly boss, having obviously forgiven me. "I can do you two scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, and toast. Would you like white or brown? And a drink?" What a lovely man, I thought.

I perched on a stool and took in the scene. It became apparent that La Liaison serves as a pitstop for London cabbies. "Have you heard about the new American national anthem?" "Zippity Doo Da! Haha!" What followed was a great deal of discussion about Fulham goalkeepers and the long ball technique.

Then my breakfast arrived. Served on what appeared to be antique china, the meal was perfectly presented. It also passed the taste test, fluffy scrambled eggs complimented by steaming baked beans. The piping hot half-tomatoes and buttered mushrooms sat well on the warm toast. Outside, Ken Livingstone scuttled by in an oversized scarf, and the cabbies became highly animated.

Going up to pay, I felt considerably better than I had earlier. La Liaison didn't fix my dirty shirt, but for £4.95 it eased my hunger, and made me consider changing where I get off the tube.

Dottie's True Blue Café, San Francisco

Dottie's True Blue Café
522 Jones St
San Francisco, CA 94102
USA
(+1) (415) 885-2767

by Emma Ricano

I'm having difficulty tapping into my voice, said Yvette. What say you pay me a visit stateside and we'll go for another life changing breakfast? Yvette had been so inspired by our last meal together (see Cafe Boheme) that she'd packed in her marketing job to compete with Angelina Jolie on the American west coast audition circuit. It was quite a hike for a Saturday morning meet up but Yvette sounded less stable than the pound and I needed to get out of the house.

Head thick with jet lag, I struggled not to roll down the steep hill where Dottie's True Blue Café was located in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Yvette exercised her range of flirtatious facial expressions to jump the queue and almost fainted when she came face to face with the Hollywood High Priestesses who had inspired them. Inside, every inch of wall and table surface was covered in images of Katharine Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Lana Turner circa 1950. This decade permeated everything from the vintage coffee machines to the waiters and waitresses who batted between open grill and table with the relaxed air of a less economically depressed age.

As Yvette paid homage by plastering her hair into a 1950s wave my jaws dripped at the stacks of banana loaves and fresh corn bread being whipped out of the oven by someone who looked liked the Fonz. My eyes popped at a glass case of honey oat scones, muffins and strawberry crumble cake and when I caught sight of the specials board promising such delights as fennel sausage, spinach and feta frittata, well, I damn near broke out into song. As so often happens in America, I was overwhelmed with choice and the accompanying anxiety that comes with missing out so I ordered "The Open Road", the biggest combination my jet lagged stomach could handle. I took a slug from my unlimited coffee mug and beheld a plate of Breakfast Nirvana: Eggs (sunny side up), bacon (crispy yet not dry), fried potatoes (some scallions, hold the ketchup) and two huge (massive, man-sized) cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup (gallons of). As I shoveled mouthfuls of egg, pancake, bacon and syrup my spirits lifted and my energy soared beyond all time zones. High on caffeine and America, I shed tears of joy. As I hoovered my plate clean I caught Yvette's astonished expression. Well, she said, I had no idea you were so adept at accessing your emotions. You'd be a hit on the audition circuit, in fact you should come and join me. If it means that I can breakfast like this everyday then I might just give it some thought. It could be a case of Emma Ricano by name, Emma Ricano by nature.

Food Van, Kingsland Waste Market

Food Van
Kingsland Waste Market
Kingsland Road
Kingsland
E8 4AA (map)

by Hashley Brown

For one night only the LRB team was Jazz. Never had there been such a confluence of breakfasting prowess and free-form improv since, well, Louis was snapped charming some juice out of a New York waitress.

Anyway, in stark contrast to the velveteen interior of Ronnie's, I found myself only hours later hungry, fallen out of bed and in the Kingsland waste market. In many ways a spiritual home this motley assortment of (possibly) stolen power tools, romantic comedy videos and old mens' shoes that lines the Kingsland Road every Saturday morning has all the appeal of a trashy carboot sale, with none of the uncertainty or trudging to Edmonton.

Breakfast is provided by Alan and his wife. At least I think he's called Alan and I'm guessing she's his wife. They sit in a van on the corner, and provide that staple of carboots, amateur sporting events, and any other impromptu gathering: hot, fried solace for waking up so early to get there.

I plumped for that old favourite, the bacon and egg butty, but noticing the option of bubble, added that in on top. I've always been a fan of the double carb sandwich - something the Scots do so well - and with a jazz hangover it seemed somehow apt to bulk up. I sat on the white patio furniture put out for customers, and watched the November sky turn a menacing colour. Alan laughed at me as his wife squeezed all the ingredients into a bun. "How's he meant to eat that?" he chuckled. "To be honest that's not my problem," she laughed back. Tucking in with the hub-bub of the market around me, and bits of fried potato sticking in my beard, I felt full, unwashed, and problem free too.

Relish, Newington Green

Relish
44-45 Newington Green Road
Newington Green
N16 9QH
020 7354 4377

by Megan Bacon

Second only to the expensive, but well-loved French patisserie Belle Epoque, Relish is fast becoming Newington Green’s go-to place for middle-class mothers who wish they lived in Notting Hill. As we perused the café’s short-but-sweet menus, there was one such person at the next table, struggling with an impudent child who was demanding a babycino (a cappuccino sans coffee). Indeed, Relish is so yummy-mummy-friendly, that babycinos are on the house.

It’s rather a pretentious sort of place – it purports to be a deli and a bar as well as a café, and its airy, contemporary interior is more typical of Upper Street, only with more Ikea furniture and less customers. I’ve yet to see how the place qualifies as a bar, but the “deli” side is well-catered with an array of posh food to take away, from fresh pasta to lovely-looking hams. Back in 2005, I had chips thrown in my face in Newington Green; fast-forward a few years, and I can bankrupt myself on parma ham – praise be!

Feeling adventurous, we plumped for the regal-sounding Eggs Royale, which are like Eggs Benedict, but with smoked salmon instead of ham. Our cappuccinos – or adultcinos, should I say – were excellent, light and frothy, but sadly not on the house. The food, however, took almost half an hour to arrive, despite the place being virtually empty during our visit. Luckily, when it arrived, it was delectable: two perfect little pods of poached egg, delicately balanced on tiny little toasted buns and a generous layer of salmon, topped off with a zesty Hollandaise sauce.

But while the meal made me want to rush out and buy a jar of Hollandaise sauce, Relish’s eggs are set to be an occasional treat, particularly during these trying financial times. At £6.75, the price is on a par with the Wolseley in Piccadilly, where a similar dish can be had for the same price, in genuinely glamorous surroundings and with much better service. If Relish is going to survive the dreaded CC, its owners had better have a rethink, and sooner rather than later. Until then, my jar of Hollandaise is doing very nicely.

Cafe Floris, South Kensington

Cafe Floris
5b Harrington Rd
South Kensington
SW7 3ES
020 7589 3276

Bob El Ensquique

Although I could see the place was crammed, grey clouds and a hungry belly led me to try the Floris. After edging my way in I was swiftly escorted to the only available seat, on the same table as several other diners. To my right were American students nibbling on garlic bread topped with mozzarella cheese and to my left, business folk swilled cappuccinos and jabbered on BlackBerries.

Not long after ordering, my coffee arrived. It wasn't great. On my first sip I winced; it had a skin. Oh well, I let it slide.

Next, the vegetarian set was slid under my nose with a laboured smile. Although there was a tight precision to the way the knife and fork were wrapped in their napkin, the little plate was noticeably jumbled in its composition. In a classic case of plate-overpopulation the various fried foodstuffs appeared to be clambering over each other, eager for space - a bit like the Floris itself.

In I tucked. Untangling the sausage from a pile of chips revealed a member of the cylindrical potato-and-diced-veg variety, mechanical and flimsy to the fork; underseasoned and underwhelming.

The fried egg had been cooked sunny side up, but was served sunny side down. From my vantage point the yolk was totally eclipsed by the rubbery white. Taken alone, an upside-down egg, this situation would not normally be a concern. However, the upturned egg and its seeping yolk was served directly on top of a great slab of bubble and squeak. Lukewarm and now covered in sticky orange goo, the bubble lost its appeal.

Only the imposing mound of chips could save the dish, yet its resistance was broken by an incoming tide of tepid bean juice. With the various potato products facing a two-pronged yolk and bean sauce attack, a vegetarian bloodbath ensued. The passive aggressiveness of each breakfast component contrived to render the meal unapproachable and unfinished.

Afforded no toast to mop up the drowning debris, I abandoned ship, paid the £4.40 bill, and stepped back into the drizzly street to get on with my day.

US Election Dispatch: Old Ebbitt Grill and Tunnicliff's Tavern, Washington DC, USA

Old Ebbitt Grill
675 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
USA
+1 202 347 4800
info@ebbitt.com
www.ebbitt.com

Tunnicliff’s Tavern
222 7th. Street, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
USA
+1 202 544 5680
tunnicliffs@gmail.com
www.tunnicliffstaverndc.com

by T.N. Toost

The weekend jaunt came at a strange time. Talking in the car, it emerged that each of us had the sense of being in the calm before the storm, that our lives had not yet been as affected by the credit crunch as they would be, that we did not know of the horrors that awaited us – but we knew such horrors would come. I imagine it must have also felt like this for relatively affluent Americans in November 1929.

There is a good chance that relatively affluent Americans at that time casually ate breakfast in the Old Ebbitt Grill, one of the oldest restaurants in Washington. These days there are two ways to see the Ebbitt: as a great history-steeped venue for power breakfasts, or as a place that is kitschy and overdone, as if they’ve manufactured the restaurant’s past in order to impress patrons. Epic, patriotic paintings hang on the walls next to animals apparently shot by Theodore Roosevelt; mirrors, wood, subtle lighting and subtle darkness are all carefully orchestrated to give the impression of age and power and impressiveness.

The only other people present on the morning of our visit were an older man and a much, much younger woman. They were comfortably close on one side of the booth, a blackberry pressed to her ear while she talked self-importantly and he waited in his dark, tailored suit. It felt empty in more ways than one, like we were yet more tourists participating in a traditional tourist activity, gawking at the old stuff and trying to “feel” the history of the place.

The food came quickly. The waitress said that my Eggs Chesapeake was their top seller. The poached eggs were perfect, as were the crab cakes, but everything was too small. I was done with each egg/crabcake combination within three bites, and the home fries lasted almost a minute. I was hoping to be inspired by flavours, if not volume, and both ultimately failed. It was like the food was supposed to be satisfying merely because of the surroundings.

Early on Sunday, in contrast to the Ebbitt’s emptiness, Tunnicliff’s Tavern was packed and lively. Outside, several dogs joyfully barked near where their owners sat; inside it was a madhouse, with groups of people clustered around the door, waiting for open tables. Not being particular, we sat at the bar. Next to us was a still-drunk Southern boy with three plain girls, all tapping Blackberries. Somehow I got the impression that they were all in the know of something to different degrees, like the blind men and the elephant. The barmaid, a pretty and round-faced girl from Belarus, came over with our coffees and a Bloody Mary, which made the long wait for our food much easier.

When my farmer’s omelette arrived I was starving. Words cannot convey the inspired magic of the mashed potatoes wrapped in egg that was firmly cooked but neither greasy nor buttery. The side of home fries was, for the price, pitifully small, and a bit cold, but still better than Ebbitt’s. After I’d eaten three of the four pieces of toast, the waitress realized that she had forgotten to give me butter; she laughed, and said I should tell her if I wanted anything, and paused suggestively before walking away.

Looking around, I realized that this was the real place for power breakfasts because, in Washington, it’s the middlemen who hold the power. The pyramid on a dollar bill is an appropriate symbol: while it’s the politicians who get all the attention and applause, they would be nowhere without the support of the massive numbers of people at the base. At the same time, between the people and the politicians is a giant network of staff and secretaries and interns and lawyers who do the research, take the calls and read the bills that the congressmen vote on or the President signs. It’s like the signs you get hanging above secretaries’ desks saying, “Do you want to talk to the boss or to someone who actually knows what’s going on?” These people didn’t go to the Ebbitt for breakfast. They knew that the food was overpriced and that their friends wouldn’t be there. They knew that without other people there isn’t any power. They came to the long tables at Tunnicliff’s to forge bonds that would span administrations.

And it’s the bonds between people that really make the difference.

Lantana, Fitzrovia

Lantana
13 Charlotte Place
Fitzrovia
London W1T 1SN
020 7637 3347
www.scramblingeggs.blogspot.com

by Blake Pudding

I’ll start with the food because the food is good. Lantana bills itself as a little bit of Australia in Fitrovia. By this they mean the new Australia of good coffee and Baz Luhrman rather than piss-poor lager and Paul Hogan. I ordered ricotta pancakes with baked fruit and yoghurt. This was pudding and an excellent pudding at that, with beautifully cooked pears and autumn berries. I was with John O’ Connell, regular breakfast companion and writer; he had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. The eggs were properly scrambled, not mashed up omelette like you get in America, and the salmon tasted, according to John, organic. It came with delightfully fluffy bread and salad. Salad for breakfast? Only in the new Australia!

So modern is Lantana that there was a media presentation happening when we arrived so we had to wait outside. Once the media team had filed out in their flared jeans and flat brown shoes like 2nd division footballers on a night out we made to go in but John was stopped by the “terrible acoustic serenading” coming from within. The waitress asked if we were coming in, John said do you mind if we wait outside until the music was turned down. “You can do what you like mate,” replied our waitress sounding a bit like Alf from Home and Away.

Green and Fortune Cafe, Kings Cross

Green and Fortune Cafe
Kings Place
York Way
Kings Cross
N1 9AG
020 7014 2840
www.kingsplace.co.uk/food-drink/cafe

by Hashley Brown

Trout in the morning is not one of my usual breakfastly ambitions, but today the trout in question was lightly griddled into a set of variations by Franz Schubert, from his perky lieder Die Forelle. Served by the Schubert Ensemble this seems to be what they do for morning entertainment at Kings Cross's latest architectural triumph.

Let's take a step back. Kings Place, soon to be a new home to the Guardian and the London Sinfonietta amongst others, was having a bit of a party to celebrate its glass and steel entrance into the world. Packed full of art, music, restaurants and, well, liberal lefty office tenants, this is the new face of the arse-end of York Way, and by means of an introduction they were putting on 100 concerts in 5 days. Trotting down on the vélo, I'd picked a morning recital to experience the acoustics of the new halls and for a spot of Friday morning elevation before the first wearisome meeting of the day. I knew that the music would be impeccable, and had heard that the acoustics were sparkly, but what I hadn't banked on was the breakfast.

Green and Fortune is the umbrella corp set up to man the food decks for Kings Place, and their cafe sits prettily in a corner of the building's central atrium. The breakfast selection glistening on a hot-plate offered plump cumberland sausages and thick cut cumbrian bacon as well as a veggie flat mushroom and grilled tomato combo. Ever the glutton I combined the veggie option with the bacon and watched with glee as they split a fresh crusty roll and applied liberal amounts of real butter before cramming in the fillings. This was quite some roll, absolutely top notch ingredients that had suffered not one bit for sitting out on display. The nicely smoked bacon was rich in flavour, the mushroom was suitably earthy and the tomato, as well as exploding down my shirt, was grilled to a succulent softness. Capped with a dark brooding latte and coming in at just under a fiver, there really was no better way to prepare for the breakfast trout that followed.

Jellystone Park, Pennsylvania, USA

Jellystone Park
P.O. Box 91
Mill Run, Pa. 15464
1-800-HEY-YOGI
www.jellystonemillrun.com

By T. N. Toost

We hadn’t planned on camping, much less at a Yogi Bear-themed campground. However, she had wanted to see Fallingwater, we’d arrived after it had shut and we were 200 miles from home. Camping was cheap and somehow made sense despite the fact that we didn’t have a tent or sleeping bags. Four hours, three lagers and a half-bottle of Boone’s Farm later, I was making out with a 23-year-old semi-crippled Kosovar architect on the roof of my car, denting it. We awoke in two extraordinarily uncomfortable positions.

I entered the restaurant while she made her face. A family large in number and girth ate in the middle of the room as Fox News blared on a 1980s colour television about Russia invading Georgia. I sat in the corner and suddenly realised that the fact that everything in the park was Yogi Bear-themed wasn’t the weird part – it was that all of the Yogi Bear-themed crap, from the bear in the corner to the gingham curtains, was decorated as if it was Halloween. In early August. Science fiction pretends that people suddenly thrust into new worlds find it difficult to adjust; really, we respond daily to absurd situations with remarkable adaptability. Weak coffee occupied my hands as I tried to focus and she limped in.

Three rubbery eggs, well-spiced, firm sausage, perfectly crisp hash browns, tinned mushrooms, green peppers, fresh tomato chunks, American cheese, wheat toast and grease formed the “mess.” At first, everything blended together grotesquely, but then I started to realise that the combination was actually perfectly balanced. The American cheese, which stuck to the roof of my mouth, could be scraped away by the potatoes, and the eggs, sub-par alone, were somehow excellent when wrapped intimately around the sausage. When I was done, a puddle of grease remained, fully coating the bottom of the plate. At $5.99, the mess was a steal.

We paid. Twenty minutes later, she slipped and fell in the water at Fallingwater, then spent four hours in my car in soaking jeans. When I dropped her off there was no goodbye kiss; instead I helped her with her crutches and watched her stumble into her apartment building. When she was safely inside, fifty metres and three layers of glass away, and I didn’t have to be self-conscious, I let out a long, satisfying fart and thought of Yogi, Cindy and Boo Boo.

Davy's Wine Bar, Fitzrovia

Davy’s Wine Bar
Euston Tower
283 Euston Rd
Fitzrovia
NW1 3DP
020 7387 6622
www.davy.co.uk

by Blake Pudding

I think most restaurateurs think that breakfast is easy. Just put a sign outside saying “now open for breakfast” and you can increase your profits without going to the trouble of paying for someone in kitchen. At least I assume that there was no one in the kitchen, if they were then they must have been purely decorative. No, instead I think that Davy’s, in an act of awesome cynicism towards its staff, employed two people to prepare the food and to serve. The unfortunate two ran around producing a lot of sweat, body odour and nervous smiles but not a lot of food.

When the food arrived it was horrible. Only scrambled egg was available so that it could be prepared in the microwave. It tasted like it had been made from a powder and rehydrated. All the food tasted pre-prepared and reheated. The mushrooms were grilled until they were as dry as porcinis. The toast was underdone, soggy and made from that bread that costs 10p a loaf and lasts a month. We had to ask for napkins, condiments, cutlery, butter, in fact everything you would need to make our revolting breakfast edible.

I know that Davy’s would respond that that there were two big groups in that morning – our group of 8 and another of 15 – but both of us had booked, the menu was very short and the two groups were the only customers. A competent cook in greasy spoon would have coped easily but then Davy’s were thinking only of the balance sheet. A memorandum to head office: do not offer breakfast if you’re not going to employ someone to cook it.

Breakfasts and Beds: Bailiffscourt Hotel & Spa, Climping, West Sussex

Bailiffscourt Hotel & Spa
Climping
West Sussex
BN17 5RW
T: +44 (0)1903 723511

by Cher E Jamm

Allow me to set the scene: a lovingly restored country hotel, manicured lawns, peacocks trotting around as if they own the place. Two infinity pools, a hot tub and more spa treatments than you can dream of. Our room is absolutely beautiful with a bathroom the size of your average London one-bedroom flat. S&T’s wedding was very special. Perfect, even.

We stumble to our room full of joy and gin and decide to give breakfast with everyone else a miss and order breakfast in bed. A romantic gesture we rarely have time to bother with in real life. I suspect this is where it went wrong. And so, at 9am, there is a knock at the door and a silver-domed tray is sitting at the end of the bed.

Three croissants sit in a napkin that has been origami’d into a basket. They are solid and empty at the same time, so burnt they’re crispy on the inside. No mini-jars of jam accompany them, just a sad looking pat of butter the size of a 10p coin. The fry up, if one is to call it that, consists of a cold, overcooked poached egg sitting aloft half a small mushroom, herbed breadcrumbs masquerading as a (cocktail) sausage and, surprisingly, the finest, crispiest, tastiest bacon the Jamms have ever squabbled over.

As we arrive in the breakfast room to join our friends three things become clear:

1) A hotel that is overstretched with a private function is not going to make sure that the annoying couple in Room 23 are going to get a decent spread. They have 150 guests to feed the morning after a night that finished at 5am.

2) If you order room service the morning after a friend's wedding instead of joining everyone else, you’re a total moron.

3) We’d missed the boat to breakfast bliss in the form of the Bailiffscourt buffet.

J + A Cafe, Clerkenwell

J + A Cafe
4 Sutton Lane
Clerkenwell
EC1M 5PU

by Moose Lee

Now, I know that some of the LRB massive would argue that a bacon and egg sandwich is not sufficient evidence upon which to judge an entire establishment but, I believe, within this salty microcosm are all the good and bad habits upon which everything else is based.

Questions to ask your Bacon and Egg sandwich:

1) When they slice the sandwich in half (as they surely must) have they cut through the middle of the egg yolk?

The answer should be yes. No-one wants to discover that one half of their sandwich is all work, no play. For me, the yolk had been halved perfectly. The yellow ran in a gooey sunset amid the dark, perfectly crunchy bacon. They’d even made sure the bacon fat was properly cooked.

2) Is the bread the colour and texture of a cloud?

The answer should be yes and, again, yes. I knew they were professionals because, as I took my first bite, the bread retained my finger prints. It turns out J and A bake their own bread, which explains the delicious crusts that I used for wiping up spills.

3) Has it been given the right condiments?

In a world where perfection exists – thanks to Heinz and Daddy – it’s always a risk to go off-piste, condiment-wise. Here they gave me fantastic Tiptree sauces, both red and brown, to use at my discretion. Let me tell you, I abused their good will.

4) Finally, predictably, how much does it cost?

In this case, just over a fiver with a good cup of tea. That stung a little, but not so much that I won’t be back.

Other notes:

Having just recently opened, the staff of J and A Café have the lovely, gushing, slightly embarrassing kindness of a start-up business. They welcomed me warmly, sat me down, took my order promptly and happily let me borrow a pen to write my review on one of their napkins.

Docklands Diner, Docklands

Docklands Diner
76 Cannon Drive
West India Dock
Docklands
E14 4AS
020 7515 7160

by Gracie Spoon

Docklands is an area of unsettling and awe-inspiring new. However, nooked amongst the dizzying glass, salt water smells and box fresh pavements, there are wisps of an East End past of 0171 phone codes and first name familiarity. The Docklands Diner is one such wisp.

Sepia-tinted formica tables with bolted-on plastic chairs, neat clusters of condiments and lace frills claim the 'classic caff' badge of identity. The numerous and very large St George’s flags stake out a different and more ambiguous territory. The five standard brunch options (ranging from £3.60 to £4.90) are served – school dinner style – from rectangular chrome vats behind a glass counter.

Being veggie, the brunches didn't quite match me, and I had some explaining to do. Neither hostile nor unhelpful, the response was nonetheless: “well I don’t know what’s veggie and what ain’t darling”. I attempted some direction. “Um, like, fried slice?” I suggested hopefully, with positive results. “Uh, hash browns? Maybe mushrooms?” I continued. By this point she was getting the idea: “What about tomatoes?”. “Yes. Brilliant. Yes”.

I settled down to an ample plate of promising grease. I wanted to love this breakfast. The retroist in me loved the feel of the place, and the anti-corporate in me saluted it for existing when so many of its comrades have fallen to the armies of advancing Starbucks and Prets. But the breakfast was awful. My coffee was so unremittingly wrong that I didn’t get past two sips. The hash browns, stiffened with age, were a particularly disturbing discovery, while the fried slice left me with a querulous stomach for some hours to come. The fried egg was passable, but had no strong supporting actors to interact with. The grilled tomato was the only real player, a moment of fresh, raw red in aged and overcooked company.

I tried to gain some measure of space from my toughened meal, with a gaze up and away, designed for the middle distance. Instead I found myself looking at photoshopped picture of the Sydney Opera House draped in another very large St George’s Flag. This, I don’t get. On many levels.

Perhaps, I wondered as I made a quick exit, perhaps if my inclinations were a little less vegetarian and a bit more colonial, I would have enjoyed my breakfast more. But as I passed the the impersonal glamour of the banker restaurants 200 metres away, and headed into the expensive shimmer of Canary Wharf, I couldn't help but feel that even if I hated my Diner experience, I'm glad its there to be had.

Op-Egg: The Credit Brunch

by Cher E Jamm

We live in frugal times my friends, and it is in times like these that we must band together. It is the time to become stoic. A time to remember the tales our grandparents regaled us with, of rations and reuse.

Credit Crunch is a phrase that has become synonymous with our daily lives. At every turn apocalyptic headlines herald the end of our credit-frenzied existence. No more credit cards, mortgages, personal loans. Frivolity is now frowned upon.

It is time, good people, to shun lunches and dinners at restaurants, and, dare I say it, resurrect brunch. Later than breakfast, and earlier than lunch, brunch lives in that grey area we all too often fill with cups of tea and biscuits (or in my case, a cheeky second croissant) in the run up to 1pm. But what waste! Brunch is where you can have breakfast and lunch at the same time, thereby saving on two meals by rolling them into one. Brunch is where you can have a Full English or Fish and Chips or quite possibly both and still not be singled out for being a pig. Brunch is the future.

All our favourite caffs still serve food at brunchtime, so you can still enjoy your usual fare at the usual price and give two fingers to Pret-a-Manger at lunchtime, or better still, why not cook it yourself? Invite some friends round and get every person attending to bring one breakfast ingredient – bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, and toast – even black pudding if you’re feelin’ fancy. What a lovely way to start the day - friends, brunch and a chin-wag before setting off to work. And if you’re a little bit late into the office, just explain – with a nod to Gordon Brown – that it’s economic factors outside your control that have made you late.

A recession does not have to mean the end of the world as we know it. Many things are born out of hardship – art thrives in difficult times. It gives musicians something to sing about, painters something to, erm, paint about and writers something to write about. It reminds us what is important and teaches us there is more to life than living beyond our means. It is a time when we should turn to our fellow human and ask: fancy a spot of brunch?

myhotel, Bloomsbury

myhotel
11-13 Bayley St
Bedford Square
Bloomsbury
WC1B 3HD
020 3004 6000
www.myhotels.co.uk

by Blake Pudding

Some readers may have noted the sudden outbreak of breakfast specials across the some newspapers and magazines earlier this year. The Guardian ran extracts from the LRB, though rather spoilt it by turning their noses up at our secret identities. The Independent and Observer Food Monthly also did supplements but Time Out outdid them all with an innovative and iconic piece about breakfasting circumstances written by me. Unlike Malcolm Eggs they actually paid in real money so I decided to take out the beautiful and in many ways godlike Rachel Halliburton who commissioned the piece in the hope that she would make me a regular columnist.

We went to myhotel just off Tottenham Court Road. I walked in and my mind started thinking of how I could get myself worked up into a lather about the lower case lettering and the mission statements but the food was so good and of such good value that I don’t have space. Rachel had the bread basket which contained croissant, baguettes, pain au chocolat, rye bread - in fact enough grain-based fun to feed 2 or 3 for £4. One of the eggs in my eggs Benedict was cooked perfectly whilst the other was a little on the hard side but the hollandaise, ham and muffins were perky enough. A special mention should go to the orange juice which tasted as if there was a portal to Seville located in the juicing machine. myhotel itself has no discernable character and already looks dated despite having only been open for 4 years. We sat outside, soaked up the rare morning sunshine and enjoyed our breakfast. The column, alas, is still yet to materialise.

Breakfasts and Beds: Pentower, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire

Pentower
Tower Hill
Fishguard
Pembrokeshire
SA65 9LA
01348 874 462

by Egon Toast

In the distance, the ferries inched across the glassy Irish sea. Sat in a voluminous armchair in a quiet, turreted suite, up in a corner of this elegantly proportioned hillside retreat, I chortled smugly to myself: my ship, too, had finally come in. A sharp Easter sunshine had brought excitement such as to lift us from bed at a good hour. So it was that I and Ms Toast, my freshly betrothed, descended the oak-panelled staircase to breakfast a good 30 minutes before purported last orders, a first in our books.

Bare feet on cool, emerald tiles made their way to the wicker chairs in the dining room's enclosed verandah. We were swiftly overrun by Pentower's small squadron of cats. Binoculars to hand, I scoured the view laid out in front of me. A small seaside port waking up for the weekend; not a breath of wind to ruffle the scene. Kittiwakes wheeled over cliffs, while enigmatic breaks in the smooth surface of the harbour's waters had me seeking out seals' snouts, or a dolphin's fin.

A few more minutes' idling before our gracious hostess, Mary, arrived with a cafetière and a wicker basket full of toast. We took our seats at the sleek, sturdy dining table and began to graze, eyes ever drawn to the marvellous view encompassing the clefts and outcrops surrounding Fishguard harbour, and beyond to the horizon. On the dresser lay myriad pamphlets and brochures; I resisted the urge to input. The day had begun in too civilised a fashion to descend into sunken-headed silence.

Shortly, the main event was presented: two handsomely-sized plates of early-morning joy. Buttery, golden-hued scrambled eggs lay nestled beneath swathes of smoked salmon. One or two frisks of the pepper grinder, a squidge of quartered lemon, and life was complete. Although never too complete to resist further cups of coffee, oh, and possibly some more toasted granary to go with that alluring pot of homemade marmalade. Actually, these were not requested; rather, suggested. A fine, considerate hostess, alive to the needs of her greedy guests.

Such a quietly decadent spot. In Fishguard, too - who'd have thought it?

The Deli, Walthamstow

The Deli
69 Orford Rd
Walthamstow
E17 9NJ

by Cathy Latte

“Peep peep”. I rummage around in my bag and find Alpine Sport (my Swiss-nationalist coloured Nokia). It blinks up at me: “Guerilla Craft in Walthamstow. 26th April. Davina.”

Later, basket affixed and streamers streaming I pedal down and pick Davina up on the corner of First Avenue. We do one of those excited little waves that friends who haven’t seen each other for a while do.

Davina and me used to be ‘Wired Women’ and we’d see each other all the time. Together with our theremin-wielding Grrrrl friends we went around burning out plug sockets and making music venues (really) angry with our colourful crew of cheerleaders – and their repertoire of chants about masturbation.

Today, sunny Café Deli is our destination for a leisurely breakfast. Normalities like beany-eggs fast breaking are replaced with European cousins like paninis, wraps, baguettes and pastries. Salmon and capers with creamy cheese in a toasted baguette takes my fancy. Mozzarella and SD-tomatoes wrapped for D. We have standard in a bag herbal tea, no more to say there.

The food’s cheap and tasty – just a fiver each including tip. It’s coupled with a good chunk of side salad. Vegetables delivered in the form of crisps and an al fresco surround give it a breakfasty picnic theme.

The service is particularly good. I tend to over-tip after an experience with my boyfriend here last week. We had a moment, as couples do. He was being particularly indecisive, couldn’t choose between chocolate and pecan - a trait I deplore. It was going on for some time. I remarked on his flustering to the waitress. She peered over the counter and in her strong West Indian way said: “Boy, you gotta make your own decisions. Don’t rely on others, just ain’t fair”. What a marvellous woman, I remember thinking.

We toddle off to the Guerilla Craft – which wasn’t that radical but more of a cutesy, home stitched do: fluffy cats strewing themselves over chaise lounges, pin cushions and lavender pillows. But it's a winning combo - the breakfast, as my pa would say, ‘set me up for the day’ and the craft fair gives me a nudge to root out my old needles and yarn. I settle back into my cottage chair for lovely afternoon of pearl, stitch and bitch. Delightful.

S & M Cafe, Spitalfields

S & M Cafe
48 Brushfield St
Spitalfields
E1 6AG
020 7247 2552
www.sandmcafe.co.uk

by Malcolm Eggs

Friday morning in Spitalfields, East London. It’s 9am to be precise.

The very last delivery truck is leaving, and as far as my eye can see are hoards of fruit and vegetables, piled high into flamboyant pyramid-shaped displays. A flat-capped trader struts across the road, booting a grubby, discarded old apple as he goes and... Oh! Sorry, my mistake. Look how low his trousers are: he’s a local hipster. And in fact, on closer inspection, the truck is from an artisan bakery. They’ve just dropped off a few designer tarts at Patisserie Valerie. But of course – it’s 2008, not 1958, and actually nothing I can see even remotely resembles a pyramid of fruit. No excuse for that one.

S & M Cafe must be acting like a pair of 50s-tinted spectacles, all those mock-gingham plastic tablecloths and framed adverts for Bird’s Custard. A Winston Churchill plate on the wall, ducks-in-flight plates too. They really have pulled out all the stops to synthesise a bygone version of England, one that is now of course completely extinct, unless you go to Rossi round the corner.

The pastiche even sort of extends to the food, which hits the exact average of every full English ever served by any caff anywhere. The fried egg is a pin-up model (and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t know it) and her boyfriend the sausage is as handsome as you’d expect from a popular sausage outlet. Sadly they are let down by the company they keep: the beans being tepid, the bacon being that strange purple-ish bacon you get sometimes, the bubble and squeak being just a bit too true to the 1950s.

The radio is playing Oasis and outside a blues band sets up their kit.

Op-Egg: To BP or not to BP? That is the question

by Egon Toast

I have a breakfast-based quandary that simply must be aired. It is this: is there ever any place in the home-made breakfast for the black pudding?

A gory, sinful discus of fried pig juice balancing on the side of the plate - butting up against the sausages - is surely one of the great sights of the breakfast table. So why is it never transposed into the domestic setting? One might say that the 'Full English' as taken in a greasy spoon or pub is undertaking gross abuse of the word 'full' if it eschews the blood sausage; not so when the home-made version is served, it would seem. Is the reputation of black pudding in need of upwards revision? Can it be included in a social situation, or should more conservative breakfast instincts prevail?

Perhaps we should look at the likely inhibitive factors: culture, familial mores, and logistics.

Firstly, culture: blood sausages - puddings both black and white, boudin, Blütwurst - are the province of northerners, Celts and continentals. Although occasionally attached to one's London-caff-bought Full English, I wouldn't say that their presence is as compulsory to the southern morning feed as, say, baked beans. A slice of black pud, its sanguigenous heft, is perfect for Prussian snowstorms and wind-whipped dales - yet a little de trop for apple-pickers and financiers.

Stepping in a few yards from society's boundary, we should consider those formative childhood experiences of cooked breakfast, taken with family and at school. What morning treats did you share with siblings and parents on a Saturday morning? I remember scrambled eggs on toast, and possibly bacon. Sausages were Evening Food. But no-one has a bad word to say about (good) bacon. Black pudding, though? Well - its standing in the eyes of genteel, nutritionally-aware mums is null; they would sooner place their darling little creatures in a pool teeming with barracudas than place such a fatty disc of filth on their breakfast plate. Despite the worldly view on life one acquires with age, perhaps our subconscious still follows Mum's Rules; perhaps that's the reason you pass by the refrigerated offal section in the supermarket without hesitation. It wouldn't occur to you to stop there - as you never did so when learning the ropes of supermarket shopping by mama's side. Ditto the canned meats section, but that's for another time.

Mostly, though, it comes down to numbers. The cafe black pudding, if it appears at all, is a rather grand little treat, isn't it? You feel quite mischievous, teeth marching their way through that crunchy puck of deliciousness. But therein lies the problem: it's just one slice. To buy black pudding, to submit to your shopping trolley an entire tube of the stuff, well, that's laying down a marker, isn't it? You are telling consequence to go hang. How many meals are going to have to feature black pudding if you're to make it through the damned thing? If your dining partner tends to be just one other then you're looking at blood for breakfast, lunch and tea for quite a few days, each slice eaten in the face of disapproval and guilt. And probably not a little nausea, after a while. Maybe a friend or two will be present for a weekend breakfast - but there's no guarantee they will be fans of the stuff either.

I think circumstances and society will keep this little circular treasure in its place for a while yet. To attempt to adapt it, to minimise its arterial threat for today's more health-conscious food consumer would be to doom it to obsolescence - why not just eat a normal sausage? It will remain a fixture in many traditional spoons and caffs, as it should; but think twice before inviting it into your house. It may turn you Scottish.

Special Dispatch: The Kitchen, Polperro

The Kitchen
The Coombes
Polperro
Cornwall
PL13 2RQ
01503 272 780

by Des Ayuno

A week in a quaint, isolated Cornish fishing village with eight dear old friends had sounded so wholesome and jolly a month ago but, pace Deliverance, there remained on the last morning only three of us, exhausted and liverish, vowing never to speak again of our time in Polruan. After an emotional farewell evening featuring twelve pints, four bottles of wine and six hours’ sleep between us, it was imperative that D, the driver, at least attempt to bring his blood-alcohol levels in line with legal limits. We’d heard about nearby Polperro’s picturesque charms and pootled over at about 12mph. Disdaining the first café we passed, whose violent pink interior and curtains reminded D of Pepto-Bismol and, therefore, the sorry state of his lower intestine, we soldiered on down to the punishingly blustery front. Everything, of course, was shut. We marched back along the winding streets, bellowing apposite Fall lyrics into the wind (“I hate the countryside, so much-ah!”) and sheepishly settled into The Kitchen’s Ikea-pine chairs. Our bullheaded explorations meant we’d missed the breakfast menu by five minutes; eyelash-batting at Harry, the proprietor, failed to persuade him to break the rules for us. I hate the country people, so much-ah.

But soft! what egg on yonder all-day menu breaks? It is scrambled eggs on muffins with smoked salmon. And what creamy, silken scrambled eggs! What gorgeous, locally smoked, substantially heaped-up salmon! What carefully toasted, generously buttered, light-as-air pillows of muffins! What heady espresso! It was as delightful a breakfast as one could hope to find at the best of times and twice the price in London. Suddenly desperate to return to civilisation, we threw down our money and left. Thank god for rural gentrification.

Café Rive Gauche, Fitzrovia

Café Rive Gauche
20 Warren Street
Fitzrovia
W1T 5LS
020 7387 8232
www.caferivegauche.co.uk

by Blake Pudding

I am beginning to suspect that people don’t like me. Some people sail through life on a cushion of benevolence, whilst I seem to be forever caught on the rocks of misunderstandings and imagined slights.

Take café Rive Gauche, where I met Eleni Fostiropoulos to celebrate her birthday. We both ordered Eggs Parisienne, which turned out to be a poached egg with ham and toast. It was lovely and cheap but there wasn’t enough of it so we ordered a plain croissant to share (Eleni and I are both people of large appetites). This is when things started to go wrong.

The waitress brought me an unaccompanied croissant so I asked for some butter and jam. She looked at me incredulously and said “you want butter and jam?”. I replied that this was a correct assumption seeing as that was just what I had asked for. She brought it over and then said angrily “but you asked for a plain croissant”. I replied that plain in this circumstance means ordinary as opposed to chocolate or almond. She disagreed. A charming person here would have pretended that they were at fault, smiled and smoothed things over and everything would have been fine. Instead I said, “so the customer is always wrong?” Not a very witty response. She stomped off angrily and Eleni looked at me with one of those only-you-could-have-escalated-a-mere-muddle-into-a-full-blown-argument-
no-wonder-Mrs-Pudding-spends-so-much-time-at-her-mother’s looks.

The croissant was buttery and the jam sweet with the ripest strawberries but I could detect a lingering bitterness long after breakfast.

Special Dispatch: Chez Bernard Café, Ulan Bator, Mongolia

Chez Bernard Café
Peace Avenue
Ulan Bator
Mongolia
www.chez-bernard.com

by Egon Toast

The Lockheed Tristar was the marvel of its day; its tail-mounted engine the last word in aerodynamic future-world travel. Its day, though, was the 1970s. But here I was, in the brave new noughties, skidding over Siberian steppes in one of these superannuated aluminium tubes surrounded by jaded aid workers, with half the seats missing and an urgent, straining whirr emanating from above the rear doors. But out of the undulating mists, a conurbation: and what's more, an airport. Heavens be praised. We touched down, screeching past the rusting hulks of former Soviet military helicopters that line the runways of Ulan Bator International.

The intestinal knot unwound, the stomach awoke. What in god's name was the time? Have I missed breakfast? Urgent strides through the arrivals lounge took me out into the searing light and a Land Rover eager for company, if heedless of the need for suspension. And so we slammed into the centre of the city, epically crumbling concrete structures lining our route.

There simply aren't enough Peace Avenues in London. Great name for a road. Great name. And on that avenue, in the land of yurts, dried fermented yak's milk and mutton, a Belgian escapee named Bernard had set up a sprightly little café in the centre of town, and was ready and waiting to sell me croissants, and what's more, serve them to me on the outside decking space overlooking the city hustle and bustle while I tried to come to terms with the fact that I was in Outer Mongolia and ordering a caffe latte. It was all coming together.

The man himself, it has to be said, was a little off-beam. Bernard's attitude to the impeccable staff was rather, how you say, feisty. Perhaps that's to be expected of a man who's been up since dawn baking baguettes for a crowd of smug ex-pats. Perhaps he's on one of those relentless drives for perfection I read about in the Sunday food sections. Though one must ensure full disclosure: his buttery pastries were just the thing for a crisp sunny morning. The accompanying marmalade was a bitter joy, and the additional slices of toast crisp and tangy. I had a great cup of coffee. The waitress had made a pleasant shape in the creamy topping.

After breakfast, we went to a shopping mall. Mongolia is not quite as imagined.

The Rosemary Branch, De Beauvoir Town

The Rosemary Branch
2 Shepperton Road
De Beauvoir Town
N1 3DT
020 7704 2730
www.rosemarybranch.co.uk

by Dr Sigmund Fried

If asked what things I’d most like to see when approaching a pub, it wouldn’t be two very pissed men, almost certainly on wang, wrestling purposefully outside. Two men going at it mano e mano à la the fireplace scene in Women in Love, was, however, the sight that greeted Hashley Brown and me as we neared the Rosemary Branch.

Ordinarily we might have decided to go somewhere else, musing that such potentially life threatening horseplay was to be avoided, but following a brisk cycle along the canal, esurience now had us both in its own half-nelson.

The only breakfast option on the menu was the 'Rosemary Brunch', but what an option. Presented on possibly the biggest plate I’ve ever seen, for £7.95, we got 2 very meaty, herby sausages; very tasty black pudding; crusty, buttered bread (of which Hashley was worried there wasn’t enough, but happily admitted to being wrong post-brek); spicy “homemade” beans that gave just the right amount of kick; half a sanguine grilled tomato; and two rashers of bacon. Now, the latter Hashley wished had been crispier, and I’d probably agree, but this really is a small quibble.

Unashamedly a theatre pub the Rosemary Bush is a lovely, vaguely ramshackle affair, with the type of furniture and furnishings that this implies, and the sort of place you could imagine, back in the day, Peter O’Toole or Ollie Reed falling out of into the night. That Hawaii-period Elvis was playing on the jukebox for the duration was also a sign of impeccable taste.

The King, we know, was a serious gourmand – he would’ve liked it here.

Special Dispatch: Dumouchel Bakery, Leeds

Dumouchel Bakery
1 Ninelands Lane
Garforth
Leeds
LS25 1NX
0113 287 0055
www.dumouchel.co.uk

by OJ Simpson

3.30am. A curious hinterland of time. Going to bed at this hour suggests youthful exuberance. Waking suggests madness, poor bladder control or, worse still, a career in TV and radio breakfast presenting, which often involves both.

So powerful is the peculiar ennui brought on by rising pre-dawn that even breakfast, the stoutest of institutions, loses its way. You may wake at 3.30am. You may eat shortly after. This will be the first thing you’ve eaten since waking. But no sound mind would label this a breakfast – such traditional definitions have no authority here.

Transposed to a nondescript industrial estate on the outskirts of a nondescript small town (itself somewhere on the outskirts of the rather more descript city of Leeds) and this effect is magnified a thousand times over. It is dark. I don’t quite know why I agreed to come, at this hour at least, and I am not sure what awaits me behind the door I have just knocked on. Whatever is about to happen, I do not feel very breakfasty.

That my mind should change so suddenly is testament to the power of the smell of baking. I have come to meet a renegade French baker, Thierry Dumouchel, and for reasons I do not fully understand, I have arrived at 4am – a time I suggested. Perhaps it is partly due to his annoyingly stereotypical but nevertheless highly effective Gallic charm, but as I walk into Dumouchel’s bakery I feel very breakfasty indeed. I have discovered the source of the region’s best continental breakfast fare.

Thierry’s two French assistants continue to busy themselves while I am given a short tour. The bulk of the bread has just been baked, and attention has turned to pastries. As I watch a piece of pastry the size of a ping pong table being cut into croissant segments, I am handed a piece of heaven. Pain au chocolat. Out of the oven just long enough for the chocolate within to have regained its snap, it is the freshest thing I have ever tasted – it has a lustrous glow about it and is filled with warm, scented air. It moves me. Five minutes earlier, I was pallid, weary, and held together by sheer force will. Now I am in heaven. I am a god and I have eaten the sun.

During my reverie, Thierry has been explaining many things about baking to me. Sadly, I have missed everything he said. (Except the following trivium: only croissants made with butter are allowed to be baked straight, any deviation from this and they must be baked curled into a crescent shape.)

My visit was not in vain, however. For one, with the morning comes the chance to ask for all important details to be reiterated to me via email. More importantly, I have seen with my own eyes the dedication, talent and outlandish French zeal required to produce the pastries I once took for granted. When you next bite into one, be it at a workaday 8.30am on the way to the office, or a leisurely 11 o’clock in the lavish surroundings of your favourite hotel, take pause and consider your pastry’s provenance.

Café Boheme, Soho

Café Boheme
13 - 17 Old Compton St
Soho
W1D 5GQ
020 7734 0623
www.cafeboheme.co.uk

by Emma Ricano

I'd had it up to here with my early thirties life choices so I called a like minded companion and suggested we play truant from the office. Let's have a fabulous breakfast in the guise of two glamorous French television producers, I suggested. We'll consume fat chocolate pastries and gallons of espresso in Soho, the city's district of creative and visionary thought, and brainstorm ideas for an entertaining yet poignant television comedy-drama series. It's a date, replied my friend, I'm done with filing my life under D for Dull. See you at Café Boheme in a jiff.

As I turned the corner into Old Compton Street I was beginning to feel more than a little self conscious in my beret. These uncomfortable feelings fell away when I almost mistook my pal for Yvette from 'Allo 'Allo. She was sitting at a pavement table in a thick smog of Gitanes smoke, leaning at an acute angle on a tower of menus. She lifted her enormous bug-eyed shades and peered at me conspiratorially. Would you mind not laughing so loudly, she said. I actually know people in this area. After two strong and delicious cappuccinos we dived into the menu, which was a curious mix of British and American via a short trip to France. Declaring that this combination of Full English, Eggs Benedict and waffles was confusing her identity, Yvette opted for a granola and yoghurt (the French do curd very well she said) and I for an Eggs Florentine. Light enough for us to both focus on the finer points of story and casting.

Thank god I left room for waffles, I said. These portions are so light I might fall into a reverie. Of course they are, my friend replied. Everyone knows that people in the entertainment industry don't eat. She then finished off my coffee, threw back four complimentary sugar cubes and tucked into her yoghurt and granola pot which was lovingly sprinkled with a baby's fistful of blueberries and raspberries. What my Eggs Florentine lacked in size, they made up for in taste. The muffin was soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, crisped with an onion glaze. There was a generous portion of fresh spinach and the poached egg was the colour of a Californian sun. The hollandaise was tart and salty in equal measure. In combination, it was one excellent mouthful.

By the end of breakfast we deduced that it is a massive, starving, cancer inducing hassle being a French television producer. I think that what we ate was American, not French, said my friend. She paused. How much do you think I'd have to borrow to take acting lessons in LA? I dragged her over to Ed's Diner for a shake and fries so we could start doing the math.

Spark Cafe, Clapton

Spark Cafe
Springfield Park Cafe
Springfield Park
Clapton
E5 9EF
www.sparkcafe.co.uk

by Malcolm Eggs

With thanks to the estate of Eggar Alpen Poe

During half of a bright, sunny and soundless hour in the spring of the year, I had been passing with three others, on foot, through a singularly inky tract of Clapton, and we found ourselves within view of the legendary Springfield Park Cafe. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of being very peckish indeed pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the welcoming café, and the wild features of the park - upon the friendly pigeons - upon the daft little yapping dog - and upon the big marshy whatnot in the distance; I looked upon it all with a great hopefulness of belly that I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than the yearning of a pious alcoholic barbiturates addict, at the very last minute of Lent.

The breakfast was superb. It was not its diameter nor its radius - but its height - ah, that was appealing! A generousness of bacon; an egg large, tasty and summery beyond comparison; two sausages of an addictive herby model, with a breadth of flavour unusual in similar constructions; a hash brown, speaking in its sturdy reliability of an abundance of moral energy; beans alternately vivacious and sullen.

I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of parkland whose vegetation, so varied in hue, impressed on my mind at once the urgency with which I should communicate this glorious place to all who would listen, so they could verify my account while the summer still persisted. And I know not how it was but as I left I took a moment to blink and it was autumn, and then it was winter, then it was spring, before I was blinking into the summer once more.

They still do a nice breakfast though, I’m told.

The Deptford Project, Deptford

The Deptford Project
121 - 123 Deptford High St
Deptford
SE8 4NS
www.thedeptfordproject.com

by Sultan Pepper

Deptford High Street has some great caffs – the tea is strong and milky, the breakfasts are gratifyingly greasy, and the prices are paltry. But, like everything else in this god-fearing district, they’re closed on Sundays. Adherents of the Church of Breakfast are the only congregation in Deptford without a place of worship.

Until The Deptford Project – a disused railway carriage reborn as a laid-back, mildly arty, lo-fi café – came to save our souls. The owner seemed to have underestimated the desperation of the area's surprisingly large population of middle-class white 20-something types for a Sabbath fry-up: the place was heaving when we dropped in (on one of their first Sundays, admittedly), the staff were flapping and complimentary coffees were being slung about in apology for the long wait for food.

But hallelujah, if it isn’t the breakfast that bourgeois Deptford’s been waiting for: velvety, flavoursome scrambled eggs; perfectly cooked bacon, cut almost thick enough to warrant the term ‘slab’. Tomatoes – a revelation: small, surprisingly sweet and juicy. Real Mushrooms! neither watery and pallid, nor fried to death – they steered a middle course between the two most common conditions of the inexpertly handled shroom. These were softly sautéed cuddly little buttons. I wanted to keep them as pets.

I mean it as a compliment when I say it was amateurish – not clinical, cynical, nor cheffy, and nor was it slapdash; it was achieved with the art that conceals art.

If, as its name suggests, The Deptford Project is some kind of experiment, perhaps designed to see whether the time is right to take Deptford’s café culture in a more flamboyant direction, then I don’t think it’s too early to pronounce the experiment a success. Praise the Lord.

Maze Grill, Mayfair

Maze Grill
10 - 13 Grosvenor Square
London
W1K 6JP
020 7495 2211
www.gordonramsay.com/mazegrill

by Rhys Chris Peese

My business manager, Martin, only came and knocked on my door.“What the fuck do you want?” I enquired.

“I’ve noticed,” he said, “there’s nowhere to get a Gordon Ramsay breakfast in London.”

“Fuck!” I said. “We’d better fucking sort that out!”

So I opened Maze Grill, and did it up in a pistachio and pebble colour scheme.

“How much should we charge?” said Martin.

“How about eighteen quid for the buffet, and twenty-six for a full fucking breakfast?” I said.

“…fine,” he said, totting up the massive fucking profit margins.

We planned the buffet first. We planned the fuck out of it. We ordered chorizo, Parma ham, miniature pastries, sweaty cheese – “And make sure it is fucking sweaty!” I yelled – cereals, yoghurt, and fruit.

“Call the muesli ‘Maze Grill muesli’!” I bellowed at Martin. “It’ll be indistinguishable from any other muesli, but we won’t have to pay the cunts at Alpen royalties.”

“We won’t have to anyway,” he said.

“Fuck off!” I replied.

Then we designed the cooked breakfast.

“How’s this?” said Martin, “Two eggs, streaky bacon, Old Spot sausages, mushrooms, beans, black pudding, and a tomato.”

“Too fucking generous!” I said. “For a start, make sure they’re the smallest fucking eggs there have ever been. Use quail eggs if necessary. And don’t waste much seasoning on them. That shit costs money! One sausage is plenty. Put the beans in a poncey bowl to disguise how fucking few there are. And only give ‘em half a tomato.”

“Half a tomato?” asked Martin.

“You heard, you fuck!”

“But they’re paying twenty-six quid.”

“Half a tomato is plenty!”

“How about three-quarters of a tomato?” he urged.

“NO!” I barked, involuntarily spitting in his eye, “Half a fucking tomato and not a fucking tomato seed more! And if they think that’s not enough then they can fuck off!”

Breaking News: Hashley in Hackney

The LRB has taken part in the very first Hackney Podcast.

Little Georgia is one of the legendary cafes that fell foul of the Broadway Market development scandal. Hashley Brown pays a visit to their new-ish premises with the presenter Francesca Panetta. Inspired by Des Ayuno's approving verdict, he tries out the Full Georgian.

But what did he think of the beans? And how does it all compare with the Georgian Democratic Republic of 1917? Find out at www.hackneypodcast.co.uk

As we've a fair few Hackney-residing contributors, perhaps they will ask us back for future editions too.

Apologies to readers from Wandsworth, Southwark, Brent, Ghana, etc.

Shipping Dispatch: 6.30am P&O ferry, Dover to Calais

6.30am P&O ferry
Dover to Calais
www.poferries.com

by Captain Cook

Breeze light south westerly, Viking decreasing good. Sea moderate to choppy. Sausage bacon moderate, hint of dogger? Eggs no good. Toast oily to moderate. Tea variable. Sea choppy now rough. Sausage bacon sick. Mainly fair with bean patches. No fog.

Café Rogerio’s, Putney

Café Rogerio’s
Putney High Street
Putney
SW15 1RX
www.rogeriosrestaurant.com

by Blake Pudding

I am always amazed by the general ineptitude in my office at making tea. Granted this is exacerbated by the weedy, Fair Trade teabags that those in charge of office supplies insist on buying – why can’t they be delicious and ethical? Or just delicious? Anyway the common technique seems to be: boil the water, leave for 5 minutes, pour onto the teabag and then immediately add lots of milk before any tea extraction can have taken place, remove teabag, add dregs from the bottom of the kettle and then serve. The tea at Café Rogerio’s was even worse than this. It tasted like it had come from those Lipton yellow label teabags that you get in holiday resorts where they really hate the English. Katie, one of the few in my office able to make tea, described it as a “tea-style drink.”

She was also disappointed by the smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. I think we all expected a mound of creamy eggs with lots of oily fish. Instead there were some school scrambled eggs with some miserly rashers of dry salmon. For this we were charged £5.40. My ladyfriend Alice and I went for something more meaty. Their nearest approximation of a Full English was OK. The sausages were at the top end of the budget range but by then we had lost interest.

Café Rogerio’s has the look of a café that was remodelled to cash in on the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. There are even Gaudi-esque mosaics. The food tastes a bit like this too - quite good coffee, paninis etc but no idea how to make a nice cup of tea and in a breakfast place this is unforgivable.

Dino’s Grill & Restaurant, Spitalfields

Dino’s Grill & Restaurant
76 Commercial Street
Spitalfields
E1 6LY
020 7247 6097

by Megan Bacon

Oh, the joys of sacking off a morning’s work and having breakfast with someone you haven’t seen in ages. Don’t tell anyone, but that’s exactly what I’m up to, as I pick my way past the early-morning traffic and construction work that dominates the Aldgate scenery. In recent years, Commercial Street has been given a face lift by its ever-growing colony of ciabatta eaters and Belgian beer enthusiasts, and I must confess – I am both a ciabatta eater and a Belgian beer enthusiast. But I’m also a sucker for museums, and that is exactly what Dino’s is.

The restaurant hasn’t had a face lift. Nay, while its 1970s shades of olive, brown and yellow are pleasing to the eye, it’s evident that Dino’s hasn’t even subjected to a little bit of Botox. While waiting for my companion to arrive, I’m pretty much the only person there on a Wednesday morning, apart from the man behind the counter (Dino himself?) and a few passing labourers who check in for takeaway bacon butties. The walls are bedecked with posters of long-gone exhibitions and plays, many of which I’d been to. The place is a study in nostalgia. Luckily, I’m the nostalgic sort.

We choose a booth in the corner, and peruse the menu – a no-nonsense list that pairs all your usual breakfast foods in divergent orgies of deliciousness. According to internet lore, the chips are pretty special, but I’m against chip-eating before midday. Being adventurous sorts, we order off-menu: bacon and eggs with toast and tea. We aren’t entirely sure that “Dino” has got our order right, because he doesn’t seem to understand what we were saying, but when the meal is delivered within minutes, it’s all there. A common complaint of London eateries – particularly of the fancier type – is that their food looks fabulous, but lacks bite. Dino’s is the polar opposite – the food looks grim, but tastes good. The bacon has none of the nearly-burnt crispiness of a perfect rasher, but it is surprisingly tasty, particularly when paired with the eggs, which are coloured to perfection in dreamy hues of white and yellow. The toast, too, is a revelation: white, thickly sliced and smothered with full-fat, salted butter. Just like toast used to be. A better start to the day, I can’t possibly imagine. I’ll be back to try the chips.

Brew, Clapham Junction

Brew
45 Northcote Road
Clapham Junction
SW11 1NJ

by Dee Caff

It’s all very bourgeois urbanite chic in Brew, with its edgy grey paint-job and wonky hanging mirrors and clock. A well thought-out Sinatra/Franklin soundtrack and a counter flaunting hand-made cakes, cookies and pastries seem promising as me, my companion, and our plummeting blood sugar levels stop in for some much needed breakfast.

It’s packed out and, after squeezing our way onto a table next to a couple who are eating in belligerent silence, we squint at the blackboard. To my horror there’s no sign of a full English. ‘Tomatoes on sour dough’ and ‘granola with blueberries’ just isn’t going to cut it. “I’ll make my own full English, you fools,” I think smugly as I piece together some components in a grasping attempt to bring some substance to the table. I’m hoping that poached eggs on toast with a side of ‘field mushrooms with pesto and cream’ and ‘Lincolnshire sausages’ will do the job.

Now, you may be imagining, from my onslaught about the unsubstantial nature of this wholesome sounding fare, that I’m some kind of meat guzzling, oil slugging philistine. I’m not, I just don’t like getting ripped off by people with pretensions that only serve to make their customers miserable. When, after about 15 minutes our breakfasts finally come, my Lincolnshire sausages are served cut lenthways in half and lightly griddled. I think the Brew crew should familiarise themselves with the expression “If it ain’t broke...”

My field mushrooms are tasty at first, but after two mouthfuls, I’m stopped in my tracks by the cloying, creamy pesto sauce they’re drowning in. My companion’s ‘Ham, cheese, tomato and poached egg, pesto melt’ has the same problem. There’s just too much going on for this time in the morning. The whole sorry episode comes to a whopping £24, and we’re quite aggressively probed to buy more coffee as we sink into the morning papers. We opt to leave instead.

Café Grill, Camden Town

Café Grill
40 Camden High St
Camden Town
NW1 0JH
020 7383 0494

by Nelson Griddle

“The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins.”

What was it in a brisk walk through Camden on a summer’s day which could call to mind this, D.H. Lawrence’s famous pronouncement on the state of the world in the 1920s?

Was it the credit crunch? The election of Boris Johnson as overlord of City Hall? I’m afraid, dear Reader, it was an événement much closer to home. What shook me was the fact that the Café Crescent, ancient greasy spoon stalwart of Camden High Street, has closed down. And in its place, almost as swiftly as night follows day, had appeared an upstart establishment, the Café Grill.

Well, a man has to eat, and decent breakfasts are thin on the ground in NW1, so I decided to give the Café Grill a whirl. At first glance, the changes are glaring. Broaching the entrance is no longer like stepping back in time. Or is it? That burgundy and silver sign is oh-so-2002. And the terracotta walls are distinctly 90s. Yet the menu, despite a hike in prices, is largely unchanged.

I opt for eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes and mushrooms. It’s all good, standard fare, served on a reassuringly oval plate. The mushrooms are doubtless the highlight (why are greasy-spoon mushrooms so often slightly slimy and tasteless? - these aren’t). And the whole is accompanied by pleasingly thick toast and rather good coffee.

Quibbles? Well, they were a bit late bringing the bill (This is one thing I never understand about eating out: when people offer me money, I accept like a shot). Apart from that, I left feeling that the end of the world might be survivable after all. But then, in the words of D.H.L.:

“We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

Book Review: AA Grill on AA Gill

Book Review
Breakfast at the Wolseley
by AA Gill

Reviewed by AA Grill

I suppose we should feel good about it really: one of Britain’s most lauded food writers has chosen to write a whole book on our repas de choix. It’s a surprise, in fact, for those of us here on this site, those of us who’ve long been celebrating the most important meal of the day, that there are so few books out there on the subject. So it is with relief that we open Mr Gill’s book and read the gleeful proclamation: “Breakfast is everything.” Great, we think. He’s one of us. He gets it.

But I should stop there. There’s a problem with the last paragraph. And it stems from the use of the word “chosen.” For Mr Gill has not “chosen” to write this book… there’s something a little more cynical at work that rather undermines his critical disinterest.

We’ve all done it I’m sure. Started reading a spread in a Sunday supplement only to realise, somewhere in the midst of the third paragraph, that the tone is rather too cloyingly effusive to stand as journalism proper - that there is a singular lack of distance. And then our eyes alight to the top corner of the page: “Advertisement feature”. A cunning attempt at dressing up an advert as journalistic endeavour, surely something that most writers spend their lives trying to avoid, for fear of compromising their art.

Not so AA Gill. However you read this book, you can’t escape the fact that it’s a marketing man’s commission, first and foremost, rather than a passion of Gill’s. You can see the logic in it from the Wolseley’s point of view. Why throw a few grand the way of an advertising exec when you can buy AA Gill and get him to write a book about your estimable eatery? Much less work all round.

I suppose it’s a sign of the times: not long ago, pre-Moby, Coldplay et al, it was considered a bit of a sell-out to allow your music on a TV advert, but now it’s pretty much ubiquitous. And ever since Fay Weldon wrote a novel for Bulgari, it seems that the world of literature is fair game too.

That said, Gill hasn’t taken his commission too seriously here, and “literature” would be an overstatement: Breakfast at the Wolseley runs to barely 35 pages of text by Gill, intermingled, with little consideration for the reader, with some fine recipes from the Wolselely’s kitchens and bound together with some rather outdated book design.

So, what meat is there within these 35 pages? To kick off, Gill refers dutifully to a Wolselely press pack and gives us a brief rundown of its history – well written brochure copy, essentially – its origins as a car showroom (well I never!) and more recent history as a branch of Barclays. He then does a little google-research into the various forms of breakfast matter: Viennoiserie, Eggs, English Breakfast, Fruits and Cereals, and Tea, Coffee and Hot Chocolate. He has also, it seems, spent a morning hanging out in the kitchens to better get a sense of place. And, evidently, spent a little too much time with the Tourier (a specialist patissier, flown in from France, no less) who sends him off down an-ever-so-slightly-too-long cul-de-sac about the origins of French pastry in Vienna.

It is Gill in Sunday Times magazine mode, with his incisors removed.

Once in a while, you see the real Gill trying to break through. When, say, criticising the Wolseley “Full English” for having beans (“de trop”, he exclaims, “and there should be fried bread,”) but it really is only once in a while. In fact, this is literally the only moment I could find in which Gill really breaks free from the shackles of his commission and dares bite the hand that feeds.

He still has time for some great writing – let’s not forget, he really does know how to write - particularly about the English breakfast, delightfully referring to the “piggy unctuous brilliance of a British banger”. And I particularly like the phrase “Double-Benny” for a double Eggs Benedict.

But then, just as Gill embarks on a rather enjoyable paragraph in which we learn the origins of bacon (actually invented in Britain, we discover - which is, again, all a little too google-researched for my liking), we reach its end only to be reminded of the real purpose of the book: “The Wolseley will serve 15,000 rashers of bacon a month,” Gill declaims. Woop-di-do, Adrian. Woop-di-do.

Whichever way you look at it, Gill’s heart really isn’t in it. Which is a real pity. I’d have quite happily ingested his Breakfast-related musings without added Wolseley flavouring – but the overpowering taint of commercialism leaves such a bitter taste. His writing can be as dependable as a Full English. As his says early on, breakfast is “the most personal and idiosyncratic construction… the most intimate of meals, a euphemism, a glance and a sly smile.” The same could be said of Gill at his best. When on form, he can serve the literary equivalent of a perfect “Double Benny”, but here, I’m sorry to say, he’s barely rustled up a runny serving of scrambled eggs.

Breakfast at the Wolseley is published by Quadrille with an RRP of £12.99 (or £6.49 from Amazon)

Special Dispatch: Café Tango, Glastonbury

Café Tango
The Glastonbury Festival
Worthy Farm
Somerset

by Cher E. Jamm

You know the sinking feeling you get in your stomach when you think the party's over before it's even started? Well, last Thursday afternoon, when I woke up gasping for air to the sound of fat rain drops hitting the roof of my polyester tent, I panicked. I woke up Mr Jamm and declared I was going home after breakfast as I couldn't bear another mudfest. He said I was being dramatic, but he humoured me anyway. We got into our wellies and raincoats and I self righteously packed all my stuff ready to head home a mere 24 hours into being there. The day before had been beautiful, and I knew, I just knew that this would happen. I don't like rain, I don't like having wet socks and hands, I don't like not being able to sit down anywhere. Yes, after breakfast, I would be going home. The decision had been made.

We trudged over to Café Tango and ordered two veggie breakfasts’ and took our coffees to the comfy low chairs and tables. Watching people slip and slide in the mud as they walked past depressed me. Breakfast arrived on recycled paper plates and wooden cutlery. Eggs, beans, veggie sausage, wholemeal toast and a spinach and mushroom extravaganza. The beans were homemade and I'd usually turn my nose up at the ponciness of it all, but these were delicious. Veggie sausages were impressive - crispy on the outside and a herby taste sensation on the inside. The mushrooms and spinach were my favourite bit – sautéed with spring onions and black pepper. The only let down was the wholemeal toast which came without butter (or anything for that matter). The eggs were fine, if slightly over cooked.

The highlight and light at the end of my blue funk was the coffee. If I could have coffee like that every day it would change my life. And indeed, it helped change my mind about leaving. I stopped seeing the slipping and sliding and noticed that people were actually laughing in the mud while I'd sat there fuming and thinking about the nearest train station. I suddenly felt ridiculous for coming over all prudish. And sure enough, by the next morning, the sun had started to shine again. I even got a tan. And I got to see Leonard Cohen. Café Tango can have my £7 any day.

Shoreditch House, Shoreditch

Shoreditch House
Ebor St
Shoreditch
E1 6AW
020 7739 5040
www.shoreditchhouse.com
(Members and guests only)

by Malcolm Eggs

As you enter, the clientele look you up and down. They check your shoes, observe your hair and guess your position in life’s unwritten hierarchy. “I’m in Shoreditch House. Who are you?” go their internal monologues – over and over and over, like coked up metronomes.

As with all members’ clubs, this is about the childhood desire to be included rather than excluded, or rather what happens to this basic need when it’s masked with grown-up condiments: bricks, mortar, a marketing plan, money, chefs, other stuff and – at Shoreditch House – a great interior designer. The décor really sweeps you away, each sofa being as rejuvenating as an upmarket milkshake, each chandelier having its own personality, every cascade of bookshelves scattered with yellowed manuscripts, old globes, antique cameras, board games... Oh god, it’s mesmerising. Like the secret HQ of a creative industries Bond villain. A waiter briskly delivers aromatic coffee and cool iced water to us both – and as I wait for my Full English I sink into a sort of comfortable acceptance and find myself ranking the people who were looking at me as I entered.

Everything about my breakfast is wonderful. Apart from the emptiness at its heart. And I don’t mean that metaphorically; I mean that the bacon and eggs – surely the Romeo and Juliet of any proper fry-up – are a disgrace. The sausage, mushrooms, beans, toast and tomatoes are perfect, juicy, hot, perfect and juicy respectively – but so what? When the egg has the wrong things in common with frogspawn, and the bacon shares the wrong values with Ian Beal, everything else is a consolation prize, a wooden spoon, Christina from the 1990s Neighbours twins.

They say a members’ club gets the breakfast it deserves. In a strange way, I think I wanted Shoreditch House to deserve better. I don’t know why. Maybe it got to me with its almost preposterous comfiness, or maybe the urge to be a paid-up member of something – dormant since I joined Desparate Dan’s Cowpie Eaters Club at the age of 8 – is still rattling around in there, somewhere.

Coco Momo Cafe Bar, Marylebone

Coco Momo Cafe Bar
79 Marylebone High St
Marylebone
W1U 5JZ
www.cocomomo.co.uk

by Farls Bronson

Early Sunday. At no other point does London feel so muted, like the whole place has taken a cue from its inhabitants and remains wrapped in a duvet until the excesses of the night before wear off. On the rare occasion I’m up, I love this chance to watch the city yawn and stretch back to life. Steve and I were early for an appointment and had designs on a breakfast.

Walking up a deserted Marylebone High Street we came across Coco Momo Cafe bar. Its colonial exterior was bathed in early sunlight and we quickly decided to shun the smart, wooden interior for an alfresco breakfast. It may have been our untidy appearance next to the well-groomed locals (Steve McBean had been up gathering foodstuffs from the hedgerows of Abney Park) but it took a while for our smiley waitress to arrive with our coffees and subsequently disappear with an order of one meat and one veggie breakfast. The coffee was decent though. Black and strong, exactly the caffeinated defibrillation needed, and time spent enjoying the sunshine is never wasted... But when the food arrived I was shaken from this bright bliss. The portions were meagre given the £7.25 price tag, and I was hungry.

I couldn’t fault the ingredients. The bacon was lightly smoked and streaky. The sausages were coarse, with a hint of sage and pepper (although I’d be surprised to find inferior pork this close to the Ginger Pig). The problem was how they were cooked. The bacon was cold and uncrisp and the sausage was lukewarm. Steve reckoned that the veggie sausages were the same standard brand that he buys. I pointed out that nothing highlights the folly of vegetarianism like a veggie sausage, but was told to shut up. The fried eggs were O.K. but with a ring of uncooked white surrounding the yolk. The one salvation was a large field mushroom, perfectly seasoned, with a hint of garlic and cooked just long enough to be juicy throughout. But it’s a sad state of affairs when a side act has to take centre stage.

We left not quite satisfied. The staff had been friendly and the surrounding idyllic. If only the breakfast had lived up to the setting.

Carluccio's, Terminal 5, Heathrow

Carluccio’s
Terminal 5 (pre-security)
Heathrow
TW6
www.carluccios.com

by Hashley Brown

In the past I’ve been somewhat disappointed by airport breakfasts; all that early morning struggling is seldom rewarded by the delicious breakfasty bounty it surely deserves. So when faced with an imminent departure from Heathrow Terminal 5, I succumbed to an understandable degree of scepticism (whilst narrowly avoiding any lost bag jokes at check-in).

This glorious cavern of international travel (it really is very nice inside), home to so many shattered dreams, now seems to have picked itself up from recent catastrophes - although one brief look at the website shows that post-security breakfasting options are limited to the mundane. Giraffe, Eat, Starbucks and Generic-Airport-Pub sit alongside more off-beat options such as Itsu and Wagamama (whose Japanese breakfasts I’ll be trying next time), but overall it displays a singular lack of imagination in airport service design. It must be the same people who are responsible for sticking a ‘Caviar House and Prunerie’ and a ‘Win a supercar’ stall in every British airport; such a peculiar reflection on the British psyche.

However there is one breakfasting ray of light in this whole situation, and it shines in pre-security land. Just after check-in sits Carluccio’s, whose breakfasting options are wonderfully robust. My uova e funghi, rich scrambled eggs and those famous Carluccio’s mushrooms sad side by side on a chunk of good fresh country bread. Although this humble public servant’s expense account didn't run to the full Italo-English melee, which throws pancetta into the mix, the quality of food on my plate was enough to reassure me that that just about anything this behemoth of Italy in England churns out will be good. Add great coffee and Terminal 5 looked more enticing by the mouthful.

The only problem being that with fast broken before one passes security, there really is nothing else to do but munch that beluga and dream of Ferraris.

PS. If you do try this, look out for the entertaining antics of the eyebrow plucking manager (permanently surprised v. terrahawks extra) and the surly waiter who looks disarmingly like the fat stupid one from The Wire.