Breakfasts of New York: Dominique Ansel Bakery

Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Spring Street
SoHo
New York
USA
+1 212 219 2773
www.dominiqueansel.com

Posted in the run-up to the US release, on 28 May, of The Breakfast Bible.

by Malcolm Eggs

Whither the cupcake? At almost eight years since the craze started, it is on the verge of becoming an Age. Punk, by comparison, was a potent force for merely seven years. Isn't that depressing? One generation got to be excited about blue mohicans and Anarchy in the UK; ours is in a permanent hooha over something whose Wikipedia entry begins "a small cake designed to serve one person," and continues, "which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminium cup".

Recently, however, there has been an increase in what you might call 'cupdeath chatter', defined as the rate of cupcake obituaries uploaded onto news and snark websites. It started when the cupcake chain Crumbs Bake Shop saw its share price (yes, there are cupcakes on Nasdaq) plummet after announcing that sales were down by 22%. ("FORGET GOLD," said the Wall Street Journal's headline, "THE GOURMET-CUPCAKE MARKET IS CRASHING").

Then Dominique Ansel Bakery unveiled their cupcake killer: a new breakfast-friendly pastry called a 'cronut', combining the texture of a croissant with the shape and fried-ness of a donut. For a couple of mornings it sold out really quickly. 'Are cronuts the new cupcakes?' hooted the international media.

I happened to be in Manhattan just three days after the launch of the cronut; it seemed churlish not to pop in. We arrived late in the morning. Too late – not only had they sold out of cronuts, but all of the waiting lists were full. It was as if I was trying to secure a good apartment in 1970s Moscow. Nevertheless, after a conversation with their press handler they agreed they would hold one back for me the next day. So back we went.

The interior of Dominique Ansel Bakery (there is pleasant outdoor seating) almost entirely consists of a counter and a queue. Strangely, a leather-jacketed man was lurking near the doorway, trying to persuade people to take business cards for his hairdressing shop. On the counter were gift packages of cookies and macarons. Early Belle & Sebastian was playing on the stereo. When I reached the front of the line I was handed a golden box containing a cronut ($5) plus another treasure: a kouign amann ($5.25), the traditional pastry of Brittany (it is pronounced "queen, a man"). Also, for the hell of it, I ordered their 'perfect little egg sandwich' ($5).

I liked the cronut more than I like a donut. Biting through layers of fried croissant pastry rather than the conventional dense dough, you are surprised by its overall lightness. It feels delicate, and not too gimmicky, and like a distinct item in its own right, rather than a Frankenstein-esque hybrid. You can imagine – if Ansel's secret method ever gets out – a cronut tradition emerging, and mass-produced cronuts becoming standard fare at Dunkin' Donuts (Crunkin' Cronuts?), and people in a hundred years saying "did you know the word 'cronut' is a combination of the words 'donut' and 'croissant'?". Although it had a light pink rose glaze on top and vanilla cream in the middle, the sweetness had been kept just low-volume enough for a breakfast 'nut. But it was still very sweet (did it really need that cream?), which is one reason that I don't like Ansel's cronut as much as I like a good croissant, by which I mean the heavenly, slightly oily kind you get in Paris and not the bready muck you get at most places in London (apart, curiously, from Pret a Manger).

And are cronuts the new cupcakes? Yes, OK, alright, cronuts are the new cupcakes. Happy now?

I was most grateful to them, however, for leading me to the 'DKA' or 'Dominique's kouign amann', which I would go as far as saying was the flakiest, stickiest, butteriest and altogether best kouign amann I have ever tasted. And the egg sandwich? Into a weeny brioche bun (the kind they use for burgers) was wedged a thick square of hot omelette, coated in melted gruyere. You probably wouldn't serve it in a building site canteen, but it was pretty good.

When we left, the queue was the same length as it was when we arrived. The people in it looked to be from a wide range of different professions and backgrounds; they could have played a cross-section of citizens in a disaster movie, and if you're in town, you should join them.

The Village Cafe, Ladywell

The Village Cafe
251 Algernon Rd
Ladywell
London
SE13 7AG
020 8690 1252

by Billie Hollandaise

These balmy summer evenings lend themselves to what I like to call a little drinky-poos. If one can organise for a curry to complement the ale, all the better. As another pint is always the best option - and the cycle can repeat itself a very many times - one can easily find oneself, upon arrival back home, in all sorts of trouble. Yes, I am thinking of a recent night.

The following morning, having violently ejected those materials which my body deemed surplus to requirements - an impressive and quite surprising rainbow of rogan josh particles - my thoughts turned towards breakfast. As luck would have it, not a hundred yards from my front door sits The Village Cafe, an honest greasy spoon nestled in the heart of what an estate agent would call Ladywell Village. My wife, showing a level of sympathy which quite put me on edge, told me that in my current state the best thing I could do was get myself down there and get myself outside of a fry-up. This sort of gesture comes, on average, about once every five years. I never miss my chance.

The cafe offers dishes for all times of the day but the main event is its numbered, bullet-pointed, ten-strong breakfast menu. There is nothing clever on offer here, nothing 'modern'. You know the list. From 1 to 10, every breakfast carries the air of a guaranteed winner. That said, the plate (number 2, £4.40) I ordered - eggs, bacon, chips and beans - forced me to go slightly off-piste, replacing sausages with bacon. Offered a choice between tea and coffee, I opted for tea and was delighted to witness the process which ensued, a sort of riot of hissing and splashing. From the giant urn came what must have been a kind of tea concentrate, as the mug was only half filled. Then a whistling, spitting gush of boiling hot water was directed towards the concentrate. Unfortunately, in her struggles the lady rather overdid this dilution stage and the tea emerged slightly weak, although wonderfully hot.

I took a place by the window and awaited my food. A couple of tables away, men in hi-vis were discussing football, and in particular Tottenham Hotspur, and in particular Gareth Bale. I longed to join in, for I have views on these subjects, but I've never in my whole life been able to easily converse with working men of this type, and after so many awkward moments in my own home with plumbers, builders etc. I have learned, finally, to give up trying. So I remained mute and on the fringes. Thankfully, though, my breakfast came very soon – a handsome, symmetrical breakfast. Chips up top, beans in the centre, an egg either side and two rashers shoring things up across the base. In fact, so beautiful did the ensemble look that I instinctively pulled out my iPhone and took a photo: it was that kind of a moment. And once I'd been through the little ritual whereby I empty one egg over the chips and the other over the bacon, the meal did not fail to deliver. It was perfect. I gobbled it up in an ecstatic blur, climaxing on a little bacon and egg piece which I had constructed early in the procedure and saved for the end. I do this every time, despite a bitter childhood memory in which my sister stole the trophy from the plate and, right in front of my eyes, slammed it into her fat mouth. I have never forgotten that.

I had arrived at the Village Cafe broken and twenty minutes later had emerged into the sunlight fully restored. In these circumstances, I can afford the place no less than a full ten out of ten.

Win a signed copy of The Breakfast Bible

Breaking news: we have three signed copies of The Breakfast Bible to give away.

For a chance to win our compendium of recipes, facts, essays and wild theories (see what people have been saying about it here and here), all we ask is that you tell us about a real place that has a breakfasty name.

Here's an example: Bacon Street, just off Brick Lane in London. Or the village of Bean, in Kent. If you know one already, great. If not, be a detective (or use the internet).

Leave your answers in the comments section below. You'll only be eligible if you're the first person to suggest a place, which means the sooner you enter, the easier it will be.

The competition will close at 6pm on Tuesday 7 May and we'll pick the winners at random. If you've left a comment anonymously, you should check back later that week to see if you're a victor. Good luck!

Special dispatch: bills, Sydney, Australia

bills
433 Liverpool St
Darlinghurst
Sydney, NSW 2010
Australia
+61 (2) 9360 9631
www.bills.com.au

by Sunni Sidup

There are certain unquestionable truths that you grow up with as an Australian. Christmas will always be scorching; Vegemite is a perfectly decent thing to eat; thongs are things that you wear on your feet; Richie Benaud will dominate the airwaves in the summertime; Asian food is cheap and resolutely delicious; suntans are a right; ‘mate’ is a suitable greeting for people you don’t like or even know; and somewhere, along the line, your family members are likely to have come from somewhere else.

It’s not until these family members come to visit – curious to get a glimpse of their antipodean cousins – that you begin to question such naturalised notions. Suddenly the eating of Vegemite is scorned; ‘thongs’ are deemed wholly inappropriate attire; red-faced relatives look uncomfortable wearing shorts to Christmas lunch. Everything you once thought was normal is now, apparently, not. And this extends to your breakfast garnish.

It has recently been brought to my attention that Australian cafes cannot serve breakfast without a side of rocket. This is something that most Australians likely will have noted but never questioned; we are far too busy merrily chomping the bitter leaf down with our poached eggs on soy and linseed. Malcolm Eggs, the editor of this blog and, incidentally, the person who observed this strange phenomenon, has asked me to get to the bottom of it. I asked friends, waitstaff and everyday Australians why we felt the need to garnish our breakfast plates with fancy lettuce. Here is what they came up with:

1) Rocket is to spinach what Australian Breakfast tea is to English Breakfast tea: essentially the same thing but with our own stubborn take on it.
2) It’s a cheap way to fill up a big plate. And Australian cafes love a big, white plate.
3) Rocket is an aspirational lettuce. It reflects our dreams of home ownership and quarter acre
lawns.
4) Rocket is peppery, robust and dynamic – like all most Australian men.
5) Like quinoa, macchiatos and merguez, a little bit of rocket (sorry, arugula) makes us feel cultured on a daily basis.
6) Rocket is just the contemporary version of semi-sundried tomatoes and pesto.
7) It’s a lifestyle thing, y’know?

None of the above is particularly enlightening. So ingrained is rocket in our daily consumption that we have come to think of it as a desirable – perhaps even essential – condiment. No one that I spoke to was averse to the dear old leaf. But then no one had paid much attention to it either. Like sands through the hourglass, so rocket was slipping by unnoticed: a constant, but insignificant part of our daily Australian lives.

I knew there was only one place I could go to put this theory to the test; that quintessentially Australian stalwart of the breakfast dining scene, bills. Opened by Bill Granger (the Flaxen-haired, forever-barbequing, food magazine pin-up) in 1993, the original bills in Darlinghurst is still the veritable breakfast of choice for Sydney’s early risers.

Located in an area of Sydney once colloquially known as ‘Razorhurst’, these days the bills morning crowd are more ‘push-bike’ than ‘Push’ gang. On a Saturday morning the place is full of shiny, happy people. There is not a hangover in sight. Lycra is the attire of choice. Soy lattes are ordered freely. A chef darts out and returns with a bag of green leaves. I order a stack of sweetcorn fritters; my companion a ‘full aussie breakfast’. We sit back and wait for the rocket onslaught to begin.

But lo – what is this? We both get spinach with our meals. The woman at the table next to me has boiled eggs with a side of salsa. A trendy youth across the room orders a wagyu beef burger which comes without any form of lettuce. The only green side option on the menu is avocado. I feel as though my brain is going to implode. My faith in Australian stereotypes is shattered. You can discount everything I have written above. Who am I? Where am I? And why is there no rocket!?

The Breakfast Bible: what people are saying (part two)

Earlier round-up here. Buy The Breakfast Bible at any bookshop or online, for example here, here or here.

Jonathan Gibbs, The Independent: "If cook books work then it’s in giving some kind of context to the recipes they contain. Now, obviously for some people, a picture of a cheeky Essex lad perched on a scooter, or a culinary goddess coyly sampling her wares gives all the context you need – flicking through one of these books is like flicking through a magazine. Alternatively you might want some information to browse, which is where The Breakfast Bible seems to offer a neat solution. Written by Seb Emina ‘and’ Malcolm Eggs (the same person) based on ‘their’ London Review of Breakfasts blog, it’s essentially a cross between a recipe book and Schott’s Miscellany, with its recipes interspersed with essays, facts and diversions. I particularly like the ‘Songs to Boil an Egg to’." [Read more]

Alex Heminsley and Claudia Winkleman, BBC Radio 2 Arts Show: "We are literally weeping! Weeping with joy."

Josh Raymond, The Times Literary Supplement: "Emina devotes a chapter to each of "The Magic Nine" components of a full English fry-up and goes on to describe "fast-breakers" from around the world, interspersing recipes and advice on buying ingredients with short essays on subjects ranging from reading tea leaves to breakfast proverbs. "Songs to Boil an Egg to" stands out by providing pieces of music whose durations correspond to cooking times (Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" will, ironically, yield only "medium"). Other, more complex, directions produce flavoursome results – the "omelette Arnold Bennett" combines haddock, gruyere and nutmeg – and the language is toothsome too. The supermarket cereal aisle is "a dazzling cardboard Manhattan" and bacon is "the last temptation of the vegetarian and the Jew". Of eating breakfast in bed, we are asked, "are you feeling decadent and pampered, or imprisoned and a little squalid? This attractively produced book is deceptively ambitious."

Seb Emina (co-author), The Guardian Review: "Breakfast is not love, or war, or death, or life. It is not one of the great themes of literature." [Read more]

David Leafe, The Daily Mail: "Nutritionists might shudder at some of his choices, but Churchill obviously appreciated what they have been telling us for years — that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, or the ‘sexiest’, according to the American poet Anne Sexton. That message is at the heart of an entertaining new book called The Breakfast Bible, written by food journalist Seb Emina. The most fascinating passages describe the breakfasts enjoyed by famous people over the centuries." [Read more]

Nikki Spencer, Living South (cover story): "It's a practical book, but an entertaining book, too, including good songs to boil an egg to (Roxette's Listen to Your Heart, apparently) and a page of Freud's Breakfast Dream."

Kerstin Rodgers, Ms Marmite Lover: "Breakfast is a neglected meal in terms of cookery books, until the twin-headed Seb/Malcolm wrote the recently released and rather brilliant 'The Breakfast Bible'. Written in customary witty style, with great research into the origins of breakfast food stuffs, musings on the philosophy of the first meal, this book reminds me of Schotts Miscellaney, lots of fun facts but with recipes." [Read more]

Carolyn Hart, The Lady: "The Breakfast Bible, published by Seb Emina, founder of the cheekily named (given the august presence of the similarly titled London Review Books) The London Review Of Breakfast blog. Emina and his merry gang of breakfast bloggers - Blake Pudding, HP Seuss, Poppy Tartt and Malcolm Eggs - have been described as a 'band of breakfast-obsessed radicals', bestowing the same amount of serious attention on breakfast as you might on Ian McEwan's latest novel..." [Read more]

Hannah Rose, Capture the Castle: "Finally getting to live my breakfast tray dream, thanks to a generous Easter Bunny and Freedom Furniture. I can't even begin to relay the delight when I received my gift - the gift of breakfast - a stripey oversized mug, the glorious, glorious, glorious (the third glorious is necessary, trust me) Breakfast Bible by Seb Emina." [Read more]

James Ramsden, Guardian Word of Mouth blog: "The Great British fry-up? This is the most overrated of British dishes, the scourge of the breakfast table, and the cruellest of ends for some of our finest produce [...] 'I find your views shocking and upsetting,' says Seb Emina, author of the Breakfast Bible. 'Fry-ups are a way of showing off good ingredients. You take bacon, egg, black pudding, mushrooms etc, cook them to your liking, and arrange them on a plate. That's it.' But that's not a dish. It's a few ingredients, cooked identically, then forced to compete for your attention. Perhaps 'British breakfast mezze' might make a better epithet. 'It's interactive, customisable,' argues Emina..." [Read more]

Katy Salter, Guardian Word of Mouth blog: "So if cleaning the kitchen afterwards is the first rule of successful breakfast in bed, what are the others? 'Arrange everything properly,' says Seb Emina, author of The Breakfast Bible. 'Pillows are important – they need a decent set to support both back and head when they are sitting upright. You don't want to be at less than a 90-degree angle when you're eating. Don't forget the small touches either – flowers, music and a handmade card or drawing.'" [Read more]

Cool Culinaria: "Author Seb Emina, who writes a blog about our first meal of the day under his alter ego Malcolm Eggs, has written a great history of the breakfast in his book "The Breakfast Bible". Along with ways to time your boiled egg to perfection – by listening to particular songs – it’s a fount of information about other people’s breakfast habits." [Read more]

India Knight, on Twitter: "A small masterpiece." [Link]

Stylist Magazine: "Every witty, wise and wonderful thing you can do with words about the first meal of the day is found in The Breakfast Bible."

Maddy Hubbard, The Mancunion: "Clearly, this is a man that respects breakfasts and treats it with due reverence and sincerity. One would be a fool to visit London without referring to the London Review of Breakfasts, and now his new book will enable lovers of breakfast to create the perfect breakfast at home as well." [Read more] 

Clara Silva, i Newspaper (Portugal): "'Eggs and Sausage', de Tom Waits, 'Breakfast In America', dos Supertramp, 'Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast', de Julie London, ou 'St Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast', de Frank Zappa. Se está farto de pequenos-almoços silenciosos, inspire-se nas músicas da playlist de Malcolm Eggs, o alter-ego de Seb Emina, o autor do livro 'The Breakfast Bible', o título essencial daquela que dizem ser a refeição mais importante do dia." [Read more]

Prufrock Café, Clerkenwell

Prufrock Café
23-25 Leather Lane
Clerkenwell
EC1N 7TE
207 242 0467
www.prufrockcoffee.com

by Bee Loobury

***caveat***
This writing considers only a single aspect of this lovely café, which deserves far more comprehensive appraisal.

One day a week I rise relatively early and head to Clerkenwell. As I am not a morning person it’s pretty much all I can do to make it in to work on time. So it’s no surprise that I don’t usually have time for a breakfast outing. That said last Wednesday there was a confluence of perfectly timed tube, train, and bus routes that left me with an extra 20 minutes before work. This gift from the heavens (or TFL, take your pick) allowed me to do something I’d been dreaming of.

For the past few months I‘ve spent my workday lunches at Prufrock Café, and consistently my eyes have been drawn to one particular item on the menu board – cinnamon toast. Now before I continue and extoll the virtues of this delectable treat I am going to write something that some may consider sacrilegious, especially when writing about Prufrock: I don’t drink coffee.

I know, this place is a coffee mecca, coffee is their raison d’etre, they have a coffee training center fer chrissake. And I can appreciate the sensuous aroma, the art of the barista, the paraphernalia, the stunning milky decoration, even the political aspect of the bean; it’s just not my thing. So I won’t be writing about the coffee at this coffee house as I am obviously not qualified. I prefer tea.

And this is where I find myself with just enough time for tea and toast. And the ultimate tea and toast at that. This cinnamon toast is not just your everyday stick-some-bread-in-the-toaster, slather-on-some-butter-and-sprinkle-with-a-bit-of-sugar-and-cinnamon. Oh no, this is GRIDDLED CINNAMON TOAST. Hot and melting with dark spice and sweetness. This must have been what in earlier centuries people experienced when cinnamon first arrived to the West. Almost tart aromatic spice caramelized and generously lathered on a freshly sliced loaf exceeded my weeks of expectation. This was my reward for having eaten properly balanced meals all those lunchtimes. Not that I had suffered in any way!

Prufrock does some of the best soups and stews around and always has yummy cheese or avocado on toast, too. But, knowing I’d be returning to the second half of my workday, I felt obliged to be sensible; protein would be required to endure the remaining hours and not start to flag and fade away come 4 o’clock. So the decadent pleasure of their sideboard, groaning with cakes and pies, tarts and brownies, had to wait. I think this might have made the griddled cinnamon toast taste even better – if that’s even possible.

Paternoster Chop House, The City

Paternoster Chop House
1 Warwick Court
Paternoster Square
The City
EC4M 7DX
020 7029 9400
www.paternosterchophouse.co.uk

by Anne O'Raisin

Now I like a place with an idiosyncratic breakfast menu: and surprisingly for a place nestling in the shadow of St Paul’s, the Paternoster Chop House has a decidedly eclectic mix. Alongside the usual egg dishes, there are home-made crumpets with fresh honeycomb. A pile of toast comes with 'foraged jam'. I asked what fruit they had managed to gather by hand at this rather desolate time of year: it turned out to be crab apples. There was also some presumably un-foraged orange marmalade.

I'm a strictly sweet-food-for-breakfast kind of girl, so while my friend merrily ordered poached eggs, bacon and hash browns, I dithered over the "lighter fare". Fruit salad didn't sound nearly exciting enough. Poached berries and yoghurt was a tad healthy. Perhaps a signature crumpet?

Somehow the restaurant staff seemed to know what I really wanted without me asking - and without it even featuring on the menu. Now that's what I call service.

Unprompted, I was brought a tower of mini pancakes – a cross between drop scones and American silver dollars – studded with dried fruit and drizzled with poached berries in a vanilla syrup. It was delicious, although I asked for a splodge of Greek yoghurt on the side, just to be really reckless. If there had been an extra jug of syrup I wouldn’t have turned it away.

My friend's eggs came in a deep dish, the potatoes more of a hash than a hash brown and mixed with what looked like cabbage and possibly foraged herbs. There were two shards of properly crispy bacon on top, which made her happy.

Even the coffee was good - I tried regular and decaff, just to make sure.

As for the secret pancakes, I've been reliably informed that they'll be on the menu shortly so you won't have to rely on mind-reading staff to get hold of them.

Op-Egg: an attempt to exhaust a breakfast

(Tentative d'Épuisement d'un Petit-Déj)
by Georges Berecfast

Breakfast is a matter of proportion.

Any proportion can be expressed and analysed mathematically.

Take the four basic breakfast ingredients: egg, bacon, tomato¹, sausage.

The first thing to notice is that they can be eaten in various combinations. The taste of each ingredient is enhanced by combination with another. This is one of the chief pleasures of breakfast. Some people prefer the taste of sausage with egg; others, bacon with tomato. Fewer will eat sausage with tomato, and almost none, tomato with egg or sausage with bacon. This can be expressed thus:

Interesting results can be gained from converting this into a Venn diagram showing the most popular combinations, which expresses a fascinating and pleasing circularity accounting, perhaps, for the continuing popularity of the four basic ingredients (please ignore the central shaded area on the diagram below, which we shall come back to later).

Each combination can be called a ‘fork’. While it is difficult to fit more than two ingredients on a ‘fork’, it is possible to vary the proportions of the ingredients as below.

While its exact permutations are endless, the possible combinations on the ‘fork’  are also to some extent dictated by the proportions of each ingredient available on the entire breakfast plate. The ideal combination of sausage/bacon/egg/tomato remains controversial. The ideal breakfast plate (I am using current ‘Wolsey Standard’ proportions for the sake of argument) can be expressed in the form of a pie chart.

(It is not recommended that you eat pies for breakfast, even if they are made from breakfast ingredients).

The ‘fork’, though informative and graphically pleasing, can only describe a single instance of the ingredients on the fork of one individual breakfaster. If you were to map a whole breakfast room or table in, say, a hotel, at home, or in a greasy spoon, it is necessary to change the instrument of analysis. The more sophisticated scatter graph (below) can show the ‘fork’ combinations of a number of breakfasters simultaneously. We can also use it to show the ‘forks’ of a number of individual breakfasters during the course of a breakfast, where * = Malcolm Eggs, + = Seggolene Royal, and § = Georges Berecfast. 

If we look more closely at the scatter graph above, we notice that the vertical axis is vegetarian (eggs, tomatoes), and the horizontal axis is meat (sausages, bacon): another pleasing evidence of the natural balance of standard breakfast ingredients.

Toast: the Missing Factor.

I haven’t so for included toast as a factor as it is a neutral, and can be combined with any one of the other ingredients, or with several at a time. Unlike the ‘fork’, the form of toast (unless it is very soggy) can support more than two ingredients, taking taste combinations to a new level, the logical conclusion of which is the ‘breakfast bap’.

If toast is to be included on either the Venn diagram or scattergraph, we would have to place it centrally and assume the possibility of its presence in any possible ‘fork’ . You will see this, expressed as the shaded area on my Venn and scatter graphs above. 

Tea or Coffee - the Continental/Analytic divide?

This question has been regarded as philosophically dead for some time. If you like Wittgenstein, drink tea: if you like Sartre, drink coffee.

A Word on Beans.

Some would criticise me for not including beans in my analysis. This is not a mistake. Beans are a problematic ingredient incompatible with the idea of the ‘fork’, unless the ’fork’ is used to spear a single or small number of beans, or alternatively used to scoop them up like a spoon. Either technique makes the combination of beans with other ingredients on the same ‘fork’ almost impossible, though this has been disputed in controversial research conducted recently by Malcolm Eggs. 

Also, I don’t like beans. 

These calculations were worked out on a napkin during breakfasts at Le Bal Cafe, and Le Petit Cardinal, Paris.

¹ Tomato, for the purposes of our argument, stands for ‘tomato or mushrooms (but not beans: see ‘A word on beans’)’ ie the vegetable ingredient of the breakfast.

Lucky 7, Westbourne Green

Lucky 7

127 Westbourne Park Road
Westbourne Green
W2 5QL
0207 727 6771
www.lucky7london.co.uk

by Bee Loobury

After ranting to anyone in earshot on the subject of blueberry pancakes, in particular the lack of authentic blueberry pancakes (by that I mean what I know from my childhood in the Pacific northwest of America) in London, I have happily been appeased. All can rest easy now, or at least in peace and quiet.

Growing up in Seattle, the best part of the weekend was the Saturday breakfast outing to the Pancake Corral. Here I will fess up that in part my adoration of the blueberry pancake might stem from the co-mingling of delicious food with AN ENTIRE ROOM DEVOTED SOLELY TO AN INDOOR CAROUSEL, the magic of which never failed to astonish and delight my 3, 4 and 5 year old selves. Nonetheless, the pancakes held their own.

As way of a brief bit of background, that part of the United States is blueberry country. Blueberries are, or at least were, an important cash crop and culturally significant. There were blueberry fairs and in the late summer/early fall we would go blueberry picking: pail in hand. I remember the excitement at being told it would soon be blueberry season.

Granted, the patina of time may have rosied (or rather blued) up my relationship to the berry but that doesn’t detract from the fact of what comprises a proper blueberry pancake. Well a proper, and delectable, blueberry pancake is on offer at Lucky 7. Unlike at other Diner(s) that shall here remain nameless, a blueberry pancake is not a pancake topped with blueberry compote my friends.

As it should be, at Lucky 7 the whole blueberries are mixed into the pancake batter so that when they hit the griddle those nearest to the heat explode in gorgeous hot blueberry juice. These cakes are packed to the rafters with luscious little berries in various states of exploded succulence. My mouth literally watered as the cheeky (very American-like) waitress settled the white oval plate before me. Nestled in a splayed stack were 4 hot roundels of loveliness; perfectly sized - just smaller than a CD, and dusted with a light sprinkle of powdered sugar. Needless to say the syrup on offer is at its mapely best and the strips of bacon crispy (also something I’ve found to be more American than British).

On this note there is the issue of size, or actually thickness, that I can’t fail to mention. Here I must set the record straight. What most Brits have come to regard as a pancake, in reality is a crepe. I’m sorry to be the one to have to write this, especially seeing as the crepe is, well, yes, it’s French, and I know how you all feel about the French. But a pancake has depth, look at the word: pan-cake. It is a cake made in a pan. It should not be comparable to a thin sheet of paper; it should not be practically see through – that is a crepe.

My Lucky 7 pancakes were a bit on the thin side in relation to American standards, but in all truth I think this enhanced and showcased the blueberries to their advantage. They were still pudgy little cakes, thick enough to resist a fork but light as air in the eating.

The place is a stunning homage to the American diner in its many incarnations, from ‘40’s burger joint all the way to retro-hipster irony. The extensive menu is basically a treatise in temptation, including cocktails - a very inauthentic yet welcome addition to the diner repertoire. My feeling is as long as Lucky 7 continues to serve up the most delectable blueberry pancakes this side of the Atlantic, whatever else they do is alright by me. Thank you berry, berry much Lucky 7.

Ozone Coffee Roasters, Shoreditch

Ozone Coffee Roasters
11 Leonard St
Shoreditch
EC2A 4AQ
ozonecoffee.co.uk
020 7490 1039

by Homefries Bogart

My breakfasts on the internet have taken a skyward theme. The last visit had seen me enter a cloud and this time I was in Ozone, although oddly both places seem to be at street level. And they told me my research was off. Hah! 

I am not an early breakfast person, which is why at 9am, overlooking the chefs from my bar seat at Ozone Coffee, I was surprised to have ordered a ricotta maple pancake with candied walnuts and dried fig. 

Pancakes are not my area of expertise, but it was safe to say that neither I nor my Belgian or Canadian companions had ever seen a cake of such tectonic proportions. I mean this thing was the Earth's crust, a 'platter' pretty much the size of Tibet. I tried to explain this to a fellow baker later on in the day, and he didn't understand a word I was saying.

Was it any good? 

The Canadian wasn't sure. It was a little cakey for her. The Belgian was politely speechless (probably still taking in the vastness). But I say yes.

It wore its size with confidence. Its crispy crust alone was probably thicker than most other pancakes. I felt like I was on the breakfast table of Honey I Shrunk The Kids. In Tibet. 

It was on the cakey side, but that's not to say it wasn't fluffy and light. The maple syrup had drizzled through nicely, and although I thought I was going to get away with it, ended up ordering a tad more, which I do every time. 

I find that when fruit comes with a pancake it can make the affair a bit polite, but the combo of the ricotta, walnuts and dried fig had an elevated earthyness and did a damn good job at telling the bacon where to stick it. 

Perched up high in this spacious urban coffee shop with benefits, I was ready to climb down the mountain and be on my way. A few raised eyebrows from my new Ozone friendlies at the almost emptied plate and I was out the door wondering where breakfast will take this adopted Antipodean next.