Restaurants

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Time Out Eating & Drinking Awards 2008: Best Breakfast

WINNER
Tom’s Kitchen
A Chelsea brasserie serving breakfast as well as the rest of the day’s essential meals, Tom’s Kitchen is a home away from home to Chelsea’s twin-set and twinkle-toed super-rich posse. But, weirdly, it’s great. A warm, welcoming room framed with gleaming white tiles and homespun prints, Tom’s Kitchen feels like it was set up simply to make you happy. The menu is formidable, ranging from brioches and croissants au beurre to bagels, Belgium waffles and brilliant bacon and sausage sarnies. On our visit we tried one of the latter and the crisp vanilla Belgium waffles with blueberry compote. The ‘bacon and egg sandwich with buttermilk bread and homemade tomato ketchup’ was a dream of a concoction, the bacon plentiful and beautifully crisp; the egg running majestically through the crevices of the buttermilk bread. The waffles were so good we barely touched the compote. Altogether, a breathtaking brekkie experience – a place where you want to eat everything.
Tom’s Kitchen, 27 Cale St, SW3 3QP (020 7349 0202/www.tomskitchen.co.uk). South Kensington or Sloane Square tube. Breakfast served Mon-Fri 7am-10am. Feature continues

RUNNER-UP
The Botanist
Lunch, dinner and the brilliant and rather beautiful dining room – check out the sensational wood-framed chairs and gorgeous botany-flavoured tableaux on the back wall – we’re already acknowledged fans of The Botanist at Time Out. But what of Sloane Square’s Botanist brekkie? Needless to say, it’s rather spiffing too. There are all the usual cooked and continental options, perfectly presented and cooked. Grilled kipper on toast with poached egg was perfectly peppery and smoky. A Canadian companion, who opted for a taste of her homeland, declared the maple syrup that arrived with her pancakes to be the real deal. She had issues with the thickness of the pancakes – the ones here are more crêpe-like in thickness, apparently – but she wasn’t fretting about the taste nor the fresh, juicy blueberries. We were equally won over by the service and generally elegant atmosphere. A cut above the rest.
The Botanist, 7 Sloane Square, SW1W 8EE (020 7730 0077/www.thebotanistsloanesquare.com). Sloane Square tube. Breakfast served Mon-Fri 8am-11.30am, Sat-Sun 9am-11.30am.

RUNNER-UP
Breads Etcetera
For seven years, Clapham’s award-winning sourdough bread specialist has been serving up much more than just the superbly chewy, yeast-free stuff to south Londoners for breakfast. Yellow Dualit toasters are plonked on each table and diners are free to help themselves to ‘DIY toast’ while waiting to tuck into a fine and fresh range of vegan, vegetarian and omnivorous dishes. Pan-fried wild mushrooms and free-range dried cured bacon on wholemeal sourdough (what else) was faultless. Particular praise elsewhere on the menu goes to the truncheon-thick sausages and golden free-range scrambled eggs. Friendly service and the welcoming aroma of fresh breads from the baskets by the door make this the finished article for a damn good feed first thing.
Breads Etcetera, 127 Clapham High St, SW4 7SS (020 7720 3601). Clapham Common or Clapham North tube. Breakfast served Tue-Sun 10am-5pm.

RUNNER-UP
The Providores and Tapa Room
Upstairs is for grown-up dining, but it’s the more informal downstairs Tapa Room (note, bookings aren’t taken so show up early) with it’s mesmerising menu that really gets our gastric juices flowing. Breakfast here is a truly transglobal affair. Suffice to say, bacon and egg with fried bread and a cup of builders’ brew doesn’t figure in the mix. What does is fairly consistently challenging and tasty. Poached Turkish eggs with whipped yoghurt and hot chilli butter was as astonishing a sensory slug as it sounded, while French toast stuffed with banana and pecans with grilled smokey streaky bacon and vanilla verjus syrup tantalised and teased. But you could easily have enjoyed early morning treats with flavours of Mexico, New Zealand, Asia, Greece and, er, Stornoway. The flat white – the classic antipodean milky coffee – is quite delicious.
The Providores and Tapa Room, 109 Marylebone High St, W1U 4RX (020 7935 6175/www.theprovidores.co.uk). Baker St or Bond St tube. Breakfast served Mon-Fri 9am-11.30am; Sat-Sun 10am-3pm.

RUNNER-UP
Rivington Bar and Grill
A big, tough, kick-ass mahogany bar, proper linen and a dining room with the right mix of swagger and seriousness – Shoreditch’s Rivington Bar and Grill certainly looks the part for breakfast, but does the kitchen cook up a storm? Well, frankly, yes it does. At £12 and arriving on Alan Partridge-sized plates, The Rivington English is a dish to dilly-dally over, with proper black pudding – try ’em with fried duck’s egg – big tasty dollops of bubble and squeak and all the other requisite fried and grilled parts present and very much correct. There’s a nod to the world of healthy eating elsewhere on the menu (banana, yoghurt muesli, Macroom porridge), but really this is a great cooked brekkie experience. The only duff note was struck by the slightly sour-faced service on our visit. But then, who isn’t capable of being a bit grumpy early in the morning?
Rivington Bar and Grill, 28-30 Rivington St, EC2A 3DZ (020 7729 7053/www.rivingtongrill.co.uk). Old St tube/rail. Breakfast served Mon-Fri 8am-11am.

See all winners in the Time Out Eating & Drinking Awards 2008

Award winners | Central | North | South | East | West