Breakfast Wednesdays

As I’m away in Canada on the second Wednesday in July, breakfast will have to be a week later on this occasion.  Which will, coincidentally, be my birthday … come celebrate with me!

Breakfasting venue:  Cafe Fresco

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 20th July

Time: 7:30am – 8:30am

Nearest tube is:  St James’ Park

Location: 10 Greycoat Place, Westminster
London, SW1P 1SB (click for map)

As high class breakfasts go, Lutyens has stiff competition from some of the previous contenders we’ve made it to over the last year or two.  Nevertheless, having had several recommendations I was quite looking forward to seeing how it measured up.

The entrance is quite unobtrusive – so much so, in fact, that on my first pass I walked straight by it.  Fortunately, by the time that I had walked back and found the front, some fellow breakfasters had also arrived.  It turns out that turning up unbooked may be a slightly risky affair – for although we were led directly to a large empty table, all the places around us filled up in fairly short order with booked guests.

Nevertheless, we were attended impeccably, with staff spiriting away bags, coats and even a bike wheel to the cloakroom as we were seated without a even a flicker of the eyebrow.

The food itself was a delight.  My full English breakfast had possibly the best bacon yet seen on a Breakfast Wednesday, and the sausage was excellent.  A generous portion of moist and delicious black pudding accompanied, and the tomato was full of flavour, and cooked just to the right degree.  The mushrooms were juicy and good-sized.   But the true standout must be the centrepiece double fried egg that came as close to both aesthetic and culinary perfection as I have ever seen on a breakfast table.

Other breakfasts sampled included the omlette and waffles with bacon and maple syrup.  The latter presented the only glitch, arriving at first without any sign of the promised maple syrup.  This arrived five minutes later in the slightly incongruous form of a suited waiter squeezing indecorously on a blue plastic sauce bottle.  Still, better late than never.

Overall Lutyens provided a very satisfactory breakfast experience.  That said it’s not an experience you’ll want to try out with a light wallet .. and for a similar price, I think I would probably sooner go back to the Cinnamon Club.  Nevertheless, Lutyens did not disappoint, and I would happily recommend it.

Breakfasting venue:  Lutyens

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 8th June

Time: 8:00am – 9:00am

Nearest tube is:  Temple/Farringdon

Location: 85 fleet street, London EC4Y 1AE (click for map)

For the avoidance of any confusion I should begin this entry with a disclaimer pointing out, for sake of any blog-scouring journos, that the Treasury canteen is unsubsidised by the public purse – and indeed the catering is farmed out on a PFI contract meaning that a private company pays HMT for the privilege of selling their wares to captive civil servants and their guests.

It would seem to stand to reason that a full English breakfast provided on such terms, would (a) cost more than the average greasy spoon and (b) struggle to compete with the high standard of fare sampled by this blog across the length and breadth of central London.

Wrong on both counts.

The public-private partnership efficiently served up a thoroughly decent breakfast for a recession-busting four quid or so.

One of those occasions where the whole is more than the sum of its parts – although no particular element stood out as spectacular, nothing fell short either, and the result here is an all round good breakfast.  The egg was the best, and the fried bread probably the low point – it never benefits from the buffet treatment, sat under warming lamps.  Of course, if a full english isn’t to your tastes, diversity considerations dictate that alternatives must be available. 

And you can’t get much more diverse than jam and crumpets now, can you?