Breakfast like a king goes the old adage but now diners are taking it literally with a princely price tag attached as a £42 croissant becomes the star of a new dining trend.
Restaurant goers in London are increasingly abandoning dinner and even lunch in favour of eating out in style at breakfast time.
Surveys have found diners are turning away from the more traditional dining experiences to embrace eating out at breakfast time with a 14% year on year rise recorded by research organisation Kantar.
And now Michelin-starred breakfasts are becoming the most fashionable eating experience du jour as the capital’s leading restaurants and hotels experience a breakfast-time boom.
Leading the way is the £42 speciality wagyu croissant – combining the traditional French staple with Japanese wagyu beef – available at the Cedric Grolet Patisserie in The Berkeley in London’s Knightsbridge.
And at Michelin-starred Hide restaurant in Mayfair, diners can tuck into lobster Benedict for £70 or truffled scrambled eggs on toast for £58.
Its chef director Josh Angus confirmed the growing trend and said breakfast was now the ‘busiest meal of the day’ with dishes ‘flying out of the restaurant’.
Josh Angus is the Chef director at Michelin-starred Hide restaurant in Mayfair, where breakfast is now the ‘busiest meal of the day’
Diners at Hide can tuck into lobster Benedict for £70 (pictured) or truffled scrambled eggs on toast for £58
Pavyllon London’s Turkish egg flatbread is also a popular choice among its dinner and has become a permanent fixture on its breakfast menu
He told The Times: ‘Today we did breakfast for 257 people and lunch for 130 so you can see the difference.
‘Customers are having a Michelin breakfast made to the highest standards, from the butter to the black pudding and even our own version of Nutella.’
Angus suggests that despite what may seem a hefty price tag, eating out at breakfast is a great way to experience affordable Michelin-style dining and is beloved by the Instagram generation.
‘You come here and have a really bougie luxurious breakfast for £60 a head with a cup of coffee instead of a bottle of wine and you can post it on social media..whereas our tasting menu at dinner will cost £165 a person.’
Meanwhile founder of the Gorgeous Group of restaurant and hotel consultants Robbie Bargh said that smart hoteliers were cashing in on the revenue breakfast could bring them.
‘Chefs who used to be sniffy about making breakfast have realised it gives them a chance to show off some special dishes,’ he added.
