When it comes to the most important meal of the day, London delivers. Forget burnt toast and soggy cereal and tuck into buttermilk pancakes, perfectly cooked eggs benedict or delicious French toast instead with our pick of the best breakfasts in London. Enjoy!
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The best breakfasts in London
Table of Contents
We’ve marked the best places for breakfast in London on the map below to help you plan your day. Note that some of the restaurants listed below have more than one address, not all of these have been included on the map.
The Wolseley
One of my all time favourite places to enjoy breakfast in London is at The Wolseley. Located in a large converted 1920s car showroom on Piccadilly, this elegant restaurant is open throughout the day serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and afternoon tea.
The breakfast menu is simple and delicious. Pastries, smoothies and cereals are all available as is porridge, bacon rolls, pancakes, mashed avocado, and French toast. Their full English breakfast is one of the most refined in town.
The restaurant is almost as famous for its celebrity guests as it is its dining experience but fortunately The Wolseley are just as welcoming to regular folk as they are A listers. Do make sure to book in advance.
Regency Cafe
The Regency Café has been serving fry ups since 1946 and its characterful decor – not to mention excellent fry ups – means that it’s still popular today.
Named after its location on Westminster’s Regency Street this Art Deco style cafe has been used as a filming location for films including Layer Cake and Brighton Rock and has featured in a number of BBC series including Judge John Deed and London Spy.
Breakfast is a excellent and a bargain. Choose the set breakfast deal or build your own dish choosing everything from liver and bacon to hash browns.
The Breakfast Club
You’ll spot the queues for this popular London breakfast spot long before you spy the restaurant itself; this chain is hugely popular. There are branches of the Breakfast Club around town but we’re particularly fond of the original branch in Soho, central London.
The American-style diner has a huge breakfast menu with everything from classic fry ups and big stacks of pancakes to scrambled eggs on toast and even chocolicious pancake balls (mini doughnut style fried pancake balls that taste even better than they sound).
The other reason we’ve got such a soft spot for the Breakfast Club? They are very community focused and host regular get-togethers for older people in the community who often live alone hosting folks from all walks of life in their cafes for tea, cake and Prosecco.
Dishoom
Hands down one of London’s best breakfasts can be found at the Indian chain, Dishoom. Founded in 2010 by cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, Dishoom is now one of the most popular restaurants in London thanks to their smart take on Indian food and drink, including an original breakfast menu.
The most popular breakfast is the Big Bombay, a plate piled high with akuri, char-striped smoked streaky bacon, peppery Shropshire pork sausages, masala beans, grilled field mushrooms, grilled tomato and buttered, home-made buns.
My personal favourite are the sausage naan rolls; Shropshire pork sausages served in a naan bread, freshly baked in the tandoori oven. They are incredible.
Dishoom has various locations around London including Covent Garden and Kings Cross. The restaurants are popular so be prepared to queue.
Duck & Waffle
For breakfast with a view take the lift up to the 40th floor of the Heron Tower to the Duck & Waffle.
This sky-high restaurant sits in the financial district and is open 24 hours a day. Despite never closing, it’s breakfast that you want to book for. The signature meal is the eponymous Duck and Waffle, a traditional waffle served with duck leg, a fried duck egg and topped with mustard maple syrup.
Other breakfast options include shakshouka, Colombian eggs and duck egg en cocotte (served with wild mushrooms, Gruyère, truffle, and soldiers). Healthy breakfast options are also available in the form of yoghurt and granola, and fruit salad but who wants muesli when you can have waffles?!
A second Duck & Waffle can be found on Haymarket Street serving the same delicious food just minus the view.
Where the Pancakes Are
If it’s pancakes that you’re after then Where the Pancakes Are is the perfect place for breakfast…and lunch and dinner.
My kids love the sweet toppings but I’m more fond of the savoury options although I have yet to try their Dutch baby, an American interpretation of a 17th century German oven-baked pancake recipe, reminiscent of a ‘giant Yorshire pudding’. These pancakes come with all manner of filling options including cheese, shakshouka, polenta corn fritter and avocado, or apples and almonds.
If visiting London with kids then you’ll be pleased to hear that a children’s menu is available.
Where the Pancakes Are have locations in Fitzrovia, London Bridge and Battersea Power Station.
26 Grains
One of my favourite breakfast options in Central London is 26 Grains in Neal’s Yard.
This cosy cafe serves breakfast all day with options including a 5 grain porridge topped with banana, tahini, honey, cinnamon, sesame seeds and cacao nibs and perfectly cooked fried eggs flavoured with the Middle Eastern spice, Ras el Hanout.
Also recommended are the sautéed asparagus with pancetta, peas, goats crud and pickled radish on sourdough bread.
Avobar
One of the quirkier breakfast spots in Covent Garden is Avobar, a restaurant dedicated entirely to the humble avocado.
The breakfast menu is fairly limited (a salmon and avocado croissant or a range of pastries, which are not avocado flavoured!) but the all day dining menu is excellent.
Among the highlights are savoury matcha pancakes, the ultimate avocado toast and eggs Royale. All of the food ingredients are sourced from ethical farms and locations.
The Avobar also serve up a good selection of juices and smoothies.
Eggbreak
If you can have a restaurant dedicated to avocados then you can certainly have one focused on eggs. Located in Notting Hill, Eggbreak serves “eggs all day, every day, any way”.
Whether you’re looking for a traditional breakfast of avocado on sourdough toast topped with a poached egg or a Korean inspired dish with BBQ lamb, rice and a poached egg then Eggbreak is the place to come.
Also on the menu are salmon fish cakes (topped with poached eggs), jerk spiced pork (also topped with a poached egg) and sweet potato rosti (topped with – you guessed it – a poached egg!).
Norman’s Cafe
Norman’s looks as though it’s been in business for decades but in reality this traditional British greasy spoon only opened in 2020 and has quickly become one of the best breakfast spots in north London.
The cafe is decked out with black and white white chequered tile floor, red and white chequered fabric curtains and with white formica tables lined with ketchup, brown sauce and Colman’s English Mustard – the staples of any big breakfast.
The menu is simple and there’s no deviating from what’s offered. Choose from your traditional British fry up or go rogue with Set 2; bubble n squeak, egg, hash brown, grilled tomato and beans. Personally, my favourite is the bacon sandwich closely followed by the chip butty.
E. Pellici
They don’t make cafes like E. Pellicci anymore. This Bethnal Green institution has been feeding the local community for more than 120 years. Named after Elide, wife of Primao Pellicci who first started working in the cafe in 1900, the traditional cafe is still owned and managed by the family.
One of the main reasons to come here is for the sense of history; the orange panelled wooden decor was carved by regular customer and carpenter Achille Capocci in 1946 and, thanks to his handiwork, the cafe has been granted Grade II listed status.
Of course, the food is good too and breakfast favourites include your traditional full English breakfast, fried egg and chips and pancakes.
Mount St Restaurant
If you like your breakfasts a little more bougie then head to Mount St Restaurant. Sitting above a revamped pub in Mayfair, this is very much a restaurant but with a very strong artistic bent.
Some 200 pieces of art feature throughout the restaurant including works by Andy Warhol, Henry Matisse and Lucian Freud. But it’s not just on the walls where you’ll find the art, the table lamps, dining chairs, cabinets and even the floors have all been commissioned specifically for the venue.
Doors open at 7.30am for breakfast and the morning menu includes the usual suspects such as a full English and smoked salmon and scrambled eggs as well as a few curve balls such as the devilled kidney on toast.
Caravan
One of my favourite places for breakfast or brunch in London is Caravan. Started by three New Zealanders who were on the hunt for the kind of coffee culture they had back home, the first Caravan opened in Exmouth Market in 2010 and they now have branches across the city.
Their excellent breakfast menus feature bowls of fresh fruit, golden spiced yoghurt with berries and granola, porridge, smashed avocado on toast, pancakes, fried jalapeño cornbread (my favourite) and much more. They also roast their own coffee and it is the perfect way to kickstart your day.
Kissa Wa
For something a little different, head to Highbury Fields and Kissa Wa Cafe. This delightful Japanese cafe is lserves traditional dishes inspired by the land of the rising sun. Their Japanese Style Breakfast is served all day and includes poached egg, tofu, wake and vegetables in the cafe’s own miso soup served with a multigrain rice ball.
Other Japanese breakfast options including Teriyaki chicken panini toast and Teriyaki mushroom panini toast. They also serve homemade granola which comes with seasonal fruit compote, fresh fruits and yoghurt. Traditional Japanese tea is the perfect accompaniment.
Sunday in Brooklyn
For the kind of hearty breakfast typically found in the US, head to Sunday in Brooklyn. This good-looking restaurant sits in the heart of Notting Hill, West London with floor-to-ceiling windows that are perfect for people watching along Westbourne Grove.
It’s open all day but it also happens to be one of the best breakfast places in town so we say get there early. Our favourite item on the menu? Their American-style pancakes, a fluffy stack of goodness topped with hazelnut maple praline and brown butter.
If you don’t have a sweet tooth then the cheddar scramble or egg sandwich are other favourites.
Brother Marcus
There are lots of tasty breakfast treats on the menu at Brother Marcus but one of their most popular are the sweet potato fritters. Some of our favourites include the fried chicken roti, the lamb kofta breakfast pita, the chocolate pancakes and the smokey shakshuka.
There are four branches of Brother Marcus across London but our favourite is the one near Borough Market.
Fallow
I only recently discovered breakfast at Fallow and I’m now hooked. Admittedly, this Michelin Big Gourmand restaurant is not the kind of place that you can eat in every day but it’s well worth the splurge if you are celebrating a special occasion.
The restaurant champions less commonly used ingredients and is serious about sustainability. In other words it’s all about nose-to-tail and root-to-stem, and making sure that there is zero waste.
The food is delicious, in particular their Black Pudding Benedict served on a honey waffle with black pepper hollandaise, bacon and a poached egg.
Terry’s Cafe
If you’re doing in south London then stop by Terry’s Cafe, a self-proclaimed “diamond in the rough”, that’s been serving breakfasts since 1982. The family-run cafe is only open for breakfast and lunch serving good value home cooked meals.
They’ve got a great breakfast menu but the star of the show is The Blowout; two free range eggs, bacon, Cumberland sausage, bubble & squeak or chunky chips, baked beans or tomatoes.
You’ll find Terry’s Cafe (now run by his son, Austin) in Bermondsey, not far from Borough Market.
Farm Girl
For healthy breakfasts head to Farm Girl, a small chain of health-focused cafes with items such as apple and pear pancakes, granola with fruit and yoghurt, banana and almond butter toast on their breakfast menu.
They also specialise in a range of highly Instagrammable drinks. Their signature coffee is the rose latte but other favourites include a butterfly matcha, latte black and a liquid gold latte.
There are branches of Farm Girl across London but we especially like the branch in South Kensington. It’s also a good place to stop if you’re looking for a restaurant near the Natural History Museum.
Granger & Co
We’re big fans of Granger & Co, the Australian restaurant and cafe chain that’s popular for bringing a slice of life down under to London. Breakfast options range from the sunshine fruit bowl served with coconut or greek yoghurt and tofu with fresh ginger, brown rice, mushrooms, spring greens and pickets to grilled cheese with green kimchi, and potato and feta rostis with poached eggs.
There are five branches across town but our favourite is the one in Kings Cross.
Megan’s
There are 11 branches of Megan’s across town (many in South London) and they all boast a stellar breakfast and brunch menu. From hash browns and pancakes to the N’duja brunch brioche and Turkish brunch feast, it’s an eclectic and delicious menu with something for everyone. Their bottomless brunches are particularly popular.
Megan’s are also dog-friendly.
Coppa Club Tower Bridge
Coppa Club are famous for their nine see-through igloos that sit on the restaurant terrace on the banks of the River Thames, close to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. It’s a fun place to enjoy pancakes, pastries or a full English (vegetarian options are also available).
