Welcome to The Travel Breakfast Blog.
Here we review breakfasts all over the world, mainly in hotels, but also breakfasts on airplanes and trains, at airports, train stations or just breakfasts eaten somewhere on the road.
The motto of this blog is Never travel without checking out the breakfast!
Why? Because breakfasts are important.
But there are other reasons too. As no doubt your mother told you, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This was brought home to me when I was doing my army service (Royal Gotland Anti-Aircraft Battalion, 1978-79) and breakfast was the only meal you could be sure was decent every day. I still can’t believe the amounts I would eat then.
The importance of breakfast is also obvious to anyone who has to travel and do a series of daily meetings. It is the only meal you are likely to have without rushing to catch up with the next meeting.
I should have started this blog years ago when I did more business travel. But I didn’t. However, for the record, the four best hotel breakfasts I have ever had are:
- The Metropole Sofitel in Hanoi. The first breakfast to be awarded The Travel Breakfast Blog’s top rating, 10/10.
- The Epic restaurant in the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Possibly the best hotel breakfast in the world in terms of choice and quality.
- The Auberge Ostapé outside St Jean Pied-de-Port in France. Beautiful view of the Pyrenées combined with the best of French breakfast.
- The Island Shangri-La in Hong Kong. A sumptuous mix of European/American and Asian.
On a more general point, I find that the four parts of the world that do the best hotel breakfasts are the Nordic countries (waffles, herring, lots of different bread and cheese); the Middle East (olives, pita, various cheeses and vegetables); North America (waffles, eggs, bacon, bagels); and East Asia (a cornucopia of breakfasts from different parts of the world, including obviously local).
Pavyllon, Four Seasons London at Park Lane, London, UK, 5 June 2025
I always find it more difficult to rate a la carte breakfasts than buffets. With buffets, I can (and do, purely out of dedication to my readers!) sample lots of dishes. With a la carte, it’s obviously more a hit and miss story, where you are dependent on your one…
Appetito, Rome, Italy, 19 May 2025
Having decided that I’m not into preparing breakfast for myself when I stay in a relatively expensive hotel (see my previous posting), I went to a nearby café. It was perfectly fine, friendly staff, very good service. I will not say that it was outstanding, but, given the type of…
Hotel Barrett, Rome, Italy, 19 May 2025
For more than £200 per night, ”breakfast included”, this is what you get. Make your own breakfast. I did not and went to the nearest café instead. 0/10.
The Three Blackbirds, Newmarket, UK, 11 May 2025
The Full East Anglian Breakfast was a solid start to the day. The fried eggs were the pick of the bunch with crispy edges and still runny yolks. These are the type of fried eggs you aim for but can never quite make at home. The sausage had a great…
Grand Hotel, Łódź, Poland, 20 April 2025
A relatively small, but nevertheless very varied and good breakfast. The bread is excellent and there is a good choice. Also, a nice spread of cold cuts and vegetables, as well as of cereal and various dried fruits and nuts etc to put in your yoghurt. Good choice of cut-up…
Hotel Polonia Palace, Warsaw, Poland, 18 April 2025
An excellent breakfast. A good choice of warm and cold dishes. The warm dishes include the standard ones, but also some Polish specialties, such as roast apples or dumplings with apricots (very yummy). Cold dishes or a nice, with varied spread of salads, cheese, cold cuts including both herring and…
Iceland Parliament Hotel, Reykjavik, Iceland, 8 April 2025
This is an excellent breakfast. Very good choice of fresh bread, cold cuts, vegetables and cheeses, as well as jams and condiments. There is also a menu from which you can order warm dishes, mainly but not exclusively egg, and including to East Asian optionsThe smoked and marinated salmon were…
Motel One, Dublin, Ireland, 30 March 2025
A mixed bag. The two main negatives are no warm dishes (except a basket of hard boiled eggs) and very weak in terms of fruit. The latter is the more surprising since the hotel proudly talks about the “many organic and fair trade products” they offer at breakfast. On the…
Casa Platón Páramo, Oropesa, Spain, 18 March 2025
it is difficult to know how to rate the breakfast. Let me explain. This is an amazing hotel (five rooms in total in the former home of an antique loving pharmacist. It also houses a museum. Given its size, the breakfast is by necessity small, but it is a buffet.…
Parador de Mérida, Mérida, Spain, 17 March, 2025
In a previous post I noted that the paradors tend to be similar, as are, therefore, their breakfasts. That being said, today’s breakfast was somewhat more disappointing than the others encountered on this trip. The bread continued to be unattractive, clearly not freshly baked. As previously, no vegetables for breakfast.…