Automat, Mayfair

Automat
33 Dover Street
Mayfair
W1S 4NF
www.automat-london.com
020 7499 3033

by Rhys Chris Peese

If you really want to hear about it, you’ll probably want to know what an American brasserie is doing in Mayfair, and the décor and the service and all that kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it. OK, so there’s chairs and tables and white tiles. You happy now? This ain’t some kind of interior design website, this is about breakfast.

I like the British, they do a good breakfast. But you ever seen a British breakfast with a steak in it? 'Cos I ain’t. I’ve seen all kinds of crap in their breakfasts, like blood sausage and all, but not that. You go to Automat, though, you get a goddam steak. You got to pay fifteen British pounds for the privilege, but you get it. I guess you’re thinking that twenty-five dollars is a hell of a price for a breakfast, but that steak is USDA premium non-hormone treated Nebraskan corn-fed beef. That stuff don’t come cheap. And it don’t come large, neither: go to this joint expecting some kinda twenty-four ounce T-bone and you leave disappointed. Two small pieces of fillet, that’s what you get. But that’s OK, 'cos this is breakfast. And it’s the best goddam breakfast you gonna find in London: steak, bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, and a grilled tomato as big as a man’s fist. That might be extra: this was such a goddam amazing breakfast that I was distracted from taking notes.

Anyway, I been going on about steak so much, you’re probably thinking, you crazy bastard, what else is on the menu? Well, there’s all kinds of crap, but if you order the fifteen dollar muesli or the sixteen dollar pancakes, all you gonna end up doing is looking enviously at other folks’ plates while they tuck into their steaks and all. No, you pick the Automat Big Breakfast. Best goddam breakfast in London.