London's best breakfasts and brunches
Discover the best restaurants and cafés for breakfast and brunch
Our team of experts have sought out the best breakfasts and brunches in London. Whether you're looking for coffee and pastries in a café, a posh Sunday brunch, or a mouthwateringly meaty fry-up – don't miss the most important meal of the day.
Time Out's guide to breakfasts in east London
Counter Café
There are many things we’d recommend about Counter Café, but, until recently, its prospect wasn’t one of them. In spring 2011, though, it moved 25 metres up the road from its original location to the Stour Space, and has now a terrace with views across the Lea Navigation to the Olympic site. Everything else, happily, remains the same: Counter has kept its DIY, work-in-progress feel and is still one of the best places in east London for a laid-back breakfast. Hackney Wick edgeland artists and warehouse dwellers gather among exhibitions and installations for good coffee and creative cooking: try fried potato cake with poached eggs and salmon, or a baguette with bacon, avocado and tomato relish, or French toast with berries, banana and maple syrup.
Breakfast for two with service: around £16. See more details
- Stour Space, 7 Roach Road, E3 2PA
- Breakfast served 7.30am-5pm Mon-Fri; 9am-5pm Sat, Sun.
Caravan
The Antipodean breakfast culture continues its influence across town by way of this chilled-out venue at the base of Exmouth Market. But the décor – rough wooden tables, dark leather banquettes and warehouse design details – gives the space a Manhattan-esque feel. The area’s trendiest flock here to laze over breakfast offerings with heavy Aussie/Kiwi influences – light blueberry friands (almond meal cakes) go terrifically with their selection of strong coffees (made with beans roasted in-house). But we’ve been particularly impressed by how interesting and unorthodox the dishes are. For example, grilled coconut bread might be spread with a thick layer of lemon curd cream cheese, then topped with rhubarb; or cornbread French toast, which is topped with bacon, avocado and a tall tangle of rocket. There is also a very similar brunch menu at the weekends. Service is now much improved since it first opened.
Breakfast for two with drinks and service: around £30. See more details
- 3 Redchurch Street, E2 7DJ
- Breakfast served 8am-11.30am Mon-Fri; brunch served 10am-4pm Sat, Sun.
Breakfast Club
This is ‘The Breakfast Club Part Four’ – the all-day diner chain has expanded east with a Spitalfields branch, two years after the third opened up the road in Hoxton. Taking after its siblings, it’s fabulously retro, packed with twentieth-century Americana and ’80s design flourishes. The breakfast and brunch offer is comprehensively huge, running from fruit smoothies through healthy options like Bircher muesli and porridge, on to eggs every way imaginable, fry-ups, pancakes and a few more unusual offerings (breakfast wraps, burritos). Some of the chirpy names of dishes can be a bit much early in the morning (‘Ham So Eggcited’, for instance), but you can’t fault the staff’s sunny greeting and the quality of everything on the morning menu.
Breakfast for two with service: around £16. See more details
- 12-16 Artillery Lane, E1 7LS
- Breakfast and brunch served 7.30am-5pm Mon-Fri; 9am-5pm Sat, Sun.
Railroad
It certainly stands out among the scrap metal dealers and fried chicken shops of Morning Lane: Railroad is not your typical Hackney caff. It’s quirky, homely and very lo-fi, but the breakfast is a lot more ambitious than you might expect. Devilled kidneys are sometimes on offer, as are spiced baked eggs – on our visit, we had a generous portion of granola, yogurt and vanilla-poached rhubarb, as well as homemade pork-and-fennel sausage sandwich with English mustard. The menu changes daily, and for a lighter mid-morning snack there are great pastries to accompany the Square Mile coffee. If it’s sunny, there’s a couple of tables outside on Morning Lane, which is actually more agreeable than it sounds.
Breakfast for two with service: around £18. See more details
- 120-122 Morning Lane, E9 6LH
- Breakfast served 8am-4pm Tue-Fri; 9am-4pm Sat; 9.30am-4pm Sun.
Allpress Espresso
Kiwi company Allpress crossed hemispheres for its move into the London market last year, and we’re glad it made the effort. The Bethnal Green branch is part of the new wave of cafés with their own roaster proudly on display, and we think the coffee served here – especially the signature chocolatey, deep Redchurch blend, when made as a filter brew – is consistently some of the best in London. The food makes a morning visit worthwhile too – without the distraction of a traditional British fry-up, breakfasters can tuck into healthy and innovative options such as granola with apple yogurt and rhubarb; avocado, tomato and egg plates, or field mushrooms with breadcrumbs. Big windows and cheery staff brighten up the greyest mornings.
Breakfast for two with coffee and service: around £15. See more details
- 58 Redchurch Street, E2 7DP
Bardens Boudoir Cafe
With its none-more-black exterior and an art-festooned interior that barely admits even brightest sunshine, Bardens might not strike you as an obvious place for breakfast. Indeed, lager taps, spidery NYC guitar tunes on the stereo and posters for XOYO suggest the erstwhile bosses of the Dalston basement now known as Nest ain’t leaving the nightlife behind. However, the new Bardens also does mornings rather well. From the all-day menu, we got stuck into bubble and squeak: effectively eggs Benedict, with the bubble in place of the muffins and the rashers on the side. A pleasing variation, perhaps short on the salt but with eggs poached just so. Coffee is Monmouth and from a Gaggia machine, tea comes as cups from Teapigs, and there’s granola and a short range of freshly squeezed juices for healthy types.
Breakfast for two with service: around £13. See more details
- 36 Stoke Newington Rd, N16 7XJ
- Breakfast and brunch served 7.30am-5pm Mon-Fri; 9am-5pm Sat, Sun.
The Hackney Pearl
The winner of the Time Out award for Best Café 2010 is still one of our favourites. It takes a bit of work to seek out Hackney Pearl, secreted as it is among the houses and light industry of Hackney Wick, but it’s well worth the effort. Breakfasts here are simple and homely with a few inventive twists – organic eggs on toast, granola with yogurt, sweetcorn fritters with rocket and chilli jam. Bloody Marys are especially commendable, and there’s good coffee (Square Mile, of course) and fresh mint tea. An extended outdoor area has tables spread out along the sunny frontage, and with the relaxed atmosphere and superb range of cakes, you might find yourself hanging around way past breakfast.
Breakfast for two with service: around £22. See more details
- 11 Prince Edward Road (Grnd Flr Oslo House East Wing), E9 5LX
- Breakfast served 10am-1pm daily.
Pavilion Café
The picturesque lake in Victoria Park is drained at the moment and the fish have been temporarily relocated as part of the park’s major refurbishment. So the view is currently not so much of an attraction, but Pavilion has other charms aplenty. Aussie chef Brett Redman is big on ingredient sourcing – meat is from the Ginger Pig butcher – and teas and coffees are similarly high-end. Fry-ups are what this café does best – tuck into various combinations of herby sausages, perfect eggs and crispy bacon. Pavilion’s plum location means that the crowds inevitably descend given the slightest suggestion of sunshine, but bustling staff never let things get out of control. The pond is due to be refilled in July 2011.
Breakfast for two with service: around £18. See more details
- Victoria Park, (Crown Gate West), E9 7DE
- Breakfast served 8.30am-4pm daily.
Towpath
If you can ignore the ting-tinging peloton of commuters that has adopted the Regent’s Canal towpath as an unofficial cycle route, there are few more pleasant spots in Hackney to sit and savour breakfast. Towpath is an open-fronted sliver of a café with a few outdoor tables right next to the water, and there are heaters to deal with chilly weather. Morning food options are simple and stylish and made with top ingredients – porridge comes with stewed seasonal fruit (quince, say, or rhubarb), and the rest of the short, chalked-up menu might include granola with yogurt and honey or a grilled sandwich made with artisan Cheddar. Coffee’s worth a mention too: it’s smooth and flavoursome and comes from a small roastery near Florence. On sunny days, service at Towpath can get a bit disordered, but a genial atmosphere pervades throughout.
Breakfast for two with service: around £15. See more details
- Regent's Canal towpath, (between Whitmore Bridge and Kingsland Road Bridge), N1 5SB
- Breakfast served 8am-dusk Tue-Fri; 9am-dusk Sat, Sun.
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