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.