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).
Comfort Hotel Copenhagen Airport, Copenhagen, Denmark, 18 June 2026
A relatively small but adequate buffet. Good choice of cold and warm dishes, including herring and fish roe (though this variant not really to my taste). Excellent bread. No croissants, but very nice Danish pastry (known in Denmark as ‘Viennese bread’). A special section for people with allergies/intolerances. On the…
Scandic Oceanhamnen, Helsingborg, Sweden, 17 May 2026
Another mixed breakfast, although the best so far on this particular trip visit (visiting Swedish battlefields). As usual, a nice buffet with a lot of variation. Interesting omission: no fish, neither salmon, nor herring. However good choice of vegetables and cold cuts, and a nice hot bar. The scrambled eggs…
Gyllene Uttern , Gränna, Sweden, 15 May 2026
Gyllene Uttern (the Golden Otter) is one of the classical hotels of Sweden, the first “motor hotel“, built in 1933. The view of Lake Vättern is to die for. Unfortunately, the breakfast is not. Again, a decent spread, good on the cold cuts and cheese side, waffles, warm dishes, yoghurt…
ProfilHotels Central, Stockholm, Sweden, 14 May 2026
This breakfast disappointed me – and I cannot exactly pinpoint why. Normally, I would rave about Swedish breakfasts, so this is an unexpected situation. On the positive side, a nice spread. Lots of cold cuts, also cured salmon and pickled herring. Good choice of warm dishes, including non-pork meatballs. Excellent…
Nevo by Isrotel, Ein Bokek, Israel, 8 May 2026
One of the strengths of a stay at an Israeli hotel is its breakfast and the Nevo hotel at the Dead Sea in Israel’s south is no exception . Where can one start to describe an amazing smorgasbord of salads, cheeses, breads,varieties of eggs , sweets even pizza for breakfast.…
Benji’s, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2 May 2026
This is a street café, with both outdoor and indoor seating. Let me start with the drawbacks: menu only and teabags only. That being said, the menu was certainly varied and with a party of four we managed to sample a number of different dishes and drinks. The hot chocolate…
San Clu Hotel, Ramsgate, United Kingdom, 14 April 2026
A fairly limited breakfast, although there was also a menu from which you could choose cooked dishes. On the negative side, the dishwasher had not managed to clean up the cups available. More positive, the toasters were both fast and good. The food was fine, but nothing special (bag tea…
Ăn phở béo, Hanoi, Vietnam, 22 March 2025
Another phở breakfast with some of ‘thee bike gang’. They told me that they hoped that today’s version (beef) would taste better than last week’s (chicken) 4/10. I thought it was fine, but the others, with palates honed by decades of eating phở, said that it wasn’t so great and…
Phở Đơ Gia, Hanoi, Vietnam, 15 March 2026
Another bike ride with the bike-and-breakfast gang in Hanoi. The routine is always the same: meet at 6.30, bike around Tây Hồ (West Lake) and stop somewhere for breakfast, which invariably is phở, the Vietnamese noodle soup. (There is also a coffee break later on.) With plenty of places serving…
Melia Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam, 8 March 2026
I often say that, when it comes to breakfast buffets, size does not really matter. This is usually to rate a small buffet highly. In this case, however, it is for the opposite reason. This is a very large and very varied buffet. There is Vietnamese (of course!), Japanese, Indian,…