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).
Renaissance Hong Kong Harbour View Hotel, Hong Kong S.A.R., 12 November 2025
An excellent breakfast buffet. Good choice of local (Chinese) and Western food. Needless to say, hot and cold dishes, good spread of vegetables, cereals, cold cuts and so on. Pancakes, crepes and waffles. The croissants were excellent and my friend vouched for the dim sum (I’m having dim sum for…
ACV Business Lounge, Noi Bai Airport, Vietnam, 11 November 2025
Not much to say about this. A fairly decent breakfast, though certainly not among the best airport lounge meals I’ve had. (In any case a category that rarely lends itself to gourmet eating.) A small buffet, with a mixture of western and eastern food. None of it wrong, none of…
Phở Gà Đen Hà Giang, Hanoi, Vietnam, 9th November 2025
Another bicycle ride with plenty of food (phở breakfast, coffee break and Japanese lunch) with this very pleasant bicycle club. I cannot claim to be an expert on phở, the national Vietnamese dish, but I know what I like. And, of course, the phở restaurants tend to serve phở only,…
Regent Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan, 1 November 2025
This was an excellent breakfast, if with one or two very minor drawbacks. A fairly large buffet, featuring local food as well as western and regional. The Taiwanese specialties were delicious. The western food included a good choice of excellent bread,, some of them with a local tinge, various salads…
Royal Inn Linsen, Taipei, Taiwan, 31 October 2025
This is a very uninspiring breakfast. The tea is bags only, but at least the only kind available is oolong. There is a minimal choice of cold cuts and vegetables, with a “cheese” that could only appeal to some Americans (i.e., an indeterminate, plastic yellow slice with a faint resemblance…
Phở Bò Gân Bò, Hanoi, Vietnam, 26 October 2025
OK, it’s unlikely that readers will come upon this place, but – a breakfast is a breakfast. And I am temporarily spending Sunday mornings in Hanoi biking with a very friendly informal club, whose rides always include a breakfast break; and indeed a coffee break. I wonder if they actually…
Capella Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam, 25 October 2025
This was a somewhat unusual breakfast for the region. The buffet is medium-sized, but quite varied, that is to say, various kinds of cheese, fish (the smoked mackerel was excellent!), cold cuts, salad and vegetables. Also a very nice choice of fresh fruit, cut and uncut. The cheese, cold cuts…
Caravelle Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 19 October 2025
My faith in the Southeast Asian breakfast has been restored! This was actually a smaller buffet than at the Royal Hotel Saigon, but considerably better. The one drawback I might mention was that the tea was, of course, bags only. But otherwise: the bread was very good, the croissants were…
Royal Hotel Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 18 October 2025
At first glance, this would seem to be another of those excellent Southeast Asian hotel breakfasts. Unfortunately, the first glance is not confirmed by the second glance. Yes, there is a reasonable variety of local and foreign food. But, then disappointment sets in. The bread is uninspiring. The tea is…
Qatar Airways Frequent Flyer Lounge, Heathrow Terminal 4, London, United Kingdom, 3 October 2025
A perfectly decent breakfast. It is a small buffet, some warm dishes a decent spread of called the dishes, including yoghurts, serial, fresh fruit, cheese and some cold cuts. All the meat is of course halal. On the negative side, the tea is bags only, but that is to be…