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).
Orange Lanzhou Zhongchuan Airport T3 Hotel, Lanzhou, China, 27 October 2026
Quite a few differences from the standard H Group hotel breakfast, almost all no doubt due to this being an airport hotel and likely to have foreign visitors staying. Notably, there was more bread choice, including ready-made sandwiches, butter knives (although you have to ask for butter), and more signs…
Orange Lanzhou Yellow River Bridge International Convention and Exhibition Center Hotel, Lanzhou, China, 26 October 2026
Same chain, different breakfast. As befits a city of 4.5 million people and a provincial capital, this did have more than a nod to international dishes. That included three different kinds of bread, as well as croissants (not perfect ones, but a decent attempt) and little wooden butter/jam spreaders. There…
Hanting Wuwei Agricultural Reclamation Building Hotel, Wuwei, China, 25 October 2026
This hotel’s offering was a strange mixture. On the one hand, the buffet was quite small. On the other hand, in spite of being part of the same chain (H/Orange/Huazhu) that I have commented on previously, it was rather more varied. There were some warm dishes that have not appeared…
Xingcheng Zhangye Drum Tower Hotel, Zhangye, China, 23 October 2026
A very nice breakfast. Extensive choice of both warm and cold dishes, as well as vegetables and fruit, youghurt and cereal. And not only did they have bread and a toaster, they also had knives to spread the butter with! The ‘standard’ Chinese breakfast dishes were also very good. Overall,…
Ji Hotel Yinggang Lake Hotel, Jiuquan, China, 22 October 2026
This is the ninth hotel from the H/Orange/Huazhu Group that we’re staying in on this trip. So I am by now fairly used to the the breakfasts, which (like much else) is standardised throughout the various hotels, whether called Orange, HanTing or Ji. It is therefore a bit of a…
Ji Hotel Night Market Fusen Times Plaza, Dunhuang, China 21 October 2026
Some differences between this breakfast and those in other hotels we’ve stayed in on this trip. That is probably due to the fact that we have now left Xinjiang and are in Gansu Province. Min or differences are that there is ready-made tea and there are butter knives available –…
Ji Hotel Gaochang Road, Turpan, 18 October 2026
Still with the Huazhu/Orange Group. So what’s different here? Three kinds of bread to toast, for instance, including wholemeal. But when you ask for a knife to butter your toasted bread, you are given a spoon, because there are no knives. Now, Chinese spoons are actually quite beautiful and well…
Hanting Hotel South Lake, Qiuci, China, 16 October 2026
Hanting is the brand name of the budget version of the Huazhu/Orange Group hotels. I would say that this is showing up in a slightly less varied breakfast offering. However, it should be noted that the quality is the same as in the other group hotels (Ji and Orange), and…
Orange Hotel Hotan City Square, Hotan, China, 14 October 2026
There were some differences at today’s breakfast, compared with previous Orange Hotels. Real croissants, for one thing. Not very good (rather doughy, as opposed to flaky), but still a good attempt. A different type of fried dumpling (very good). And slight differences in the fruit and vegetables choice. On the…
Orange Hotel, Yarkant, China, 12 October 2026
The hotels of this chain (H World, also known as Huazhu Group or China Lodgings Group) are very standardised, including the breakfast. That is not necessarily wrong; the standard is good, actually very good, considering the price. But it leaves little room for variation in the breakfast reviews. So, a…