Rake Commends: Power Breakfasts

For the past few years, London has been making a definite run on the title of Europe’s culinary capital and the glittering lights of the West End demarcate a veritable sea of elevated and thoroughly indulgent breakfast options. A city that has made its home to international business, finance and law, requires some serious fuelling each day and this is reflected not only in the West End, but also in the heart of the city’s commercial district and East End too. For an elegant brunch in Mayfair, 45 Jermyn Street is relatively new in town, admirably discreet and a firm favourite of The Rake’s. It’s nigh on impossible to have a poor meal in there, the service is attentive and thoughtful, the décor beguiling and the menu, presided over by Executive Chef Lee Sretton, offers thoroughly luxurious interpretations of traditional British classics; the kedgeree is sumptuous but if you’re in a health-conscious mood, try the avocado on toast with Bloody Mary sauce. Dare you leave the establishmentarian comfort of the West End, St. John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields also has a very fine breakfast menu. Another restaurant that serves inventive updates of English classics, particularly potent breakfast dishes designed by two Michelin star chef Fergus Henderson include devilled kidneys and boiled eggs with anchovy toast. And finally, we couldn’t suggest some breakfast spots in London without drawing attention to the noble institution that is H.R. Higgins on Duke Street. The only coffee shop in the city to own a royal warrant, the house’s understanding of and commitment to superior coffee is unsurpassed. The deep, dark, fruity perfume of truly exceptional fresh ground coffee hanging in the air is enough alone to make a convert of the hardiest skeptic. Pictured: 45 Jermyn Street, www.45jermynst.com.

For an uncompromisingly chic brunch, we’d suggest the three Michelin starred Le Cinq. As you might expect, it makes for a deliciously elevated dining experience, all in the rejuvenating comfort of the Four Seasons Hotel’s Regency style dining hall. The hotel offers a number of frankly divine set breakfasts, of which the Japanese breakfast is truly special; consisting of a 10-part meal with miso soup, pickled vegetables, nori seaweed, salted fish, Japanese omelette, steamed rice, spinach with sesame seeds, fried tofu, salmon sashimi, daikon turnips and green tea. For something reassuringly Parisian and aristocratic, Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli is another Parisian institution famed for it’s decadent approach to petit dejeuner, which consists of anything from particularly lavish pastries and patisserie through to Paris’s best chocolat chaud – a monstrously indulgent concoction served in a jug. If it’s a sugar rush you’re after in glamorous surroundings, then this is spot. For a pick-me-up on the move, naturally one should recourse to one of the city’s superb boulangeries, but finding one that’s really worth visiting is a rather daunting prospect. Fortunately, we’ve done the hard work for you; if you’ve got the time to visit Du Pain et Des Idees in the 10th Arondissement you’ll find a superb, homely bakery which is as popular with the locals as it is with tasteful travellers. It has furthermore been voted the best bakery in the capital repeatedly by the Breadmakers Association of Paris, which is about as fine an endorsement as you’re likely to find anywhere. Pictured: Le Cinq, www.restaurant-lecinq.com.

Breakfast in Florence is a meal of polar opposites, most commonly taking the form of both a simple pastry and espresso on the go, or else a lazy, all-out sit-down affair in a sunlit plaza, when time allows. For the latter, The Rake recommends the exquisite buffet in The Savoy Hotel’s Irene restaurant, which serves all manner of continental delights and is uncommonly chic. There are more formal hotels in Florence, but none are as comfortable, hospitable or as centrally located as the Savoy, which is located in the Piazza della Repubblica. For a more relaxed, intimate affair, opt for a quiet brunch in Café d’Artigiani, a small, homely Florentine hot spot opposite Quattro Leoni in the unassuming Piazza della Passera. Breakfasts there are simple, but simple in the highest Italian tradition; hearty fare, which leaves one with an irrepressible smile for the rest of the day. For a power-repast which packs as much of a punch and is if anything even more indulgent, take hot chocolate in Café Rivoire, one of the city’s more traditional establishments, which serves up a drink which one imagines is the closet edible thing to like chocolate flavoured velvet. Watch the sun slowly roll across the golden stone of the Palazzo Vecchio of a morning, and scoff at passing tourists with their inferior local knowledge and frankly miserable thermos flasks. Pictured: Irene, www.roccofortehotels.com.

First off, Palais Coburg is one of Vienna’s most superior hotels, and breakfast is served daily in Clementine, the Coburg’s exquisite covered orangery. The restaurant serves different set breakfasts to cater to every diner’s requirements, whether they want to stock-up for a full-on day ahead with the ‘energy breakfast’, or else recover from an intense week’s work on a Sunday morning over an ‘August-Viktor’ set breakfast. It’s an oasis of calm, in an otherwise noisy and somewhat stifling array of grand imperial cafes. That said, one should seldom visit Vienna without also partaking of a grand continental breakfast or two, of which Café Diglas is amongst the most illustrious. An institution since 1875, the café is one of few grand cafés that is not content to trade on its name alone. It’s top-notch fresh-ground coffee; traditional interior and reassuringly dense apple strudel are the stuff of legend. It’s a good spot to wake up with a paper, or for an early meeting. Pictured: Clementine, Palais Coburg, www.palais-coburg.com.

Last but not least, we come to the spiritual home of the power breakfast, New York. In the city centre, Locanda Verde and The NoMad Hotel are the two brunch-serving hot spots to watch at the moment. Both are situated in Manhattan serve a thoroughly civilized, contemporary repast in indulgent surroundings – elevating heavy breakfasts of substantial size to an altogether more sophisticated plain. The first places a chic Italian spin on modern breakfast dishes, the other specializes in reinterpreting New York staples – think eggs Benedict served with crab and tarragon or else indulgent duck egg home-baked muffins. Both are discreet, civilized and supremely satisfying. For something authentic and a little more down to earth, make your way over to Williamsburg, and brave Rye, on South 1st Street; a sign-less, simple, shabby-chic restaurant decorated with mismatched antique furnishings and a no-frills aesthetic. It’s all about the food here, and the place doesn’t skimp on serious quality. Choose from seriously good East Coast oysters, buttermilk biscuits, meatloaf and eggs, French toast, three-egg omelet – the works. It makes for a down to earth but genuine and thoroughly delicious start to the day. Pictured: NoMad, www.thenomadhotel.com.