Everyone knows the best thing about staying at hotels, b&bs, inns, arms, what have you, is the breakfast. No hangover will ever stop you from making that cut-off point, whether that’s 10 or 11am. Foodie fiends will particularly appreciate these 10 wonderfully relaxed establishments, which combine an emphasis on great local ingredients with twists on classics that pleasantly surprise. The bacon rowie is reinvented as a sourdough croissant, mushrooms get the truffle treatment and Welsh specialty laver bread is served with halloumi. From Scotland to Somerset and the Cotswolds to Cornwall, discover the great British breakfasts worth getting out of bed for.
Beadnell Towers Hotel, Chathill, Northumberland
Must-order dish: Craster kippers
Nothing quite sets you up for a frosty romp along the Northumberland Coast like wood-smoke scented Craster kippers, gently grilled and served with butter, black pepper and fresh brown bread. Minutes from the beach in the tiny fishing village of Beadnell, the swish Beadnell Towers hotel is a cosy beachy bolthole ideal for a winter weekend.
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Coombeshead Farm, Lewannick, Cornwall
Must-order dish: Bacon sandwich
Sample a bacon sandwich on freshly baked sourdough from restored dairy-farm Coombeshead and you’ll never look back. The bacon comes from their Mangalitsa pigs, reared onsite. Enjoy with house brown-sauce or fermented-tomato ketchup.
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Credit:
© Jenner Images/Jenner Images
Inver, Barnacarry, Scotland
Must-order dish: Rowies
Chef Pamela Brunton’s bacon fat rowie, served as part of a picnic basket in your bothy, is a beautiful, albeit heavy, thing. It reinvents the trad Aberdeen pastry as a sourdough croissant, laminated with rendered ham fat and rolled around cured ham belly.
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Rothay Manor, Ambleside, Lake District
Must-order dish: Truffled mushrooms on toast
Mushrooms can be dull affairs at breakfast – but not when they’re truffled and served with a poached egg on toasted sourdough, as at this pretty white-painted and balconied Regency hotel in the Lake District.
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Crab Manor Hotel, Thirsk, Yorkshire
Must-order dish: Steak and eggs
Nothing is delicate about breakfasts at this Yorkshire hotel. Like its themed bedrooms – including Taj Mahal, Cipriani, Bird Island (that’s the Seychelles, obviously) – dishes are grand affairs, with pan-fried steak and eggs a class example. There’s also choice of milkshakes to take you swimming down memory lane.
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The Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon Beacons, Wales
Must-order dish: Welsh rarebit
Every bracing hike in the hills ought to begin with this breakfast: Welsh rarebit whipped up with stout and Hafod cheese, served with mushrooms on toast and a perfectly poached egg. Between the Black Mountains and the Brecons, The Felin Fach Griffin is the country inn dream, with a huge organic kitchen garden, and log fires generously stoked as soon as things get nippy.
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Credit:
Joff Lee
Harbourmaster Hotel, Aberaeron, Cardigan Bay, Wales
Must-order dish: Laver bread
Breezy views across Cardigan Bay pique the appetite for the Harbourmaster’s blow-out breakfast special: Teifi organic halloumi, a fried egg, mushroom, avocado, laver bread (edible seaweed), sourdough toast and the restaurant’s own take on baked beans. Right on the harbour wall in Aberaeron, this forget-me-not-blue hotel is a burst of unexpected boutique cool on the wave-lashed coast of West Wales.
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Credit:
David Murray
The Wheatsheaf Inn, Northleach, Cotswolds
Must-order dish: Devilled kidneys
Spicy, tangy and with just a hint of mustard, devilled kidneys are a highlight of the generous breakfast choices at The Wheatsheaf in Northleach. The arty, retro-cool Cotswold coaching inn conjures a lavish, Victorian country house atmosphere in its dining room, which is hung with oil portraits and hunting scenes.
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Ballintaggart Farm, Grandtully, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Must-order dish: Courgette fritters
The courgette fritters with homemade beetroot ketchup, a poached egg (from their hens) and locally produced creme fraiche are so good you’ll want to keep this Highland gastronomic hideaway, complete with farm, hotel and cookery school, a secret.
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Lord Poulett Arms, Hinton-St-George, Somerset
Must-order dish: Local marmalade sausages
These award-winning pork and marmalade sausages are bought from The Sausage Shed, in Taunton. They are only subtly sweet, with a hint of orange at the start and a mild rind flavour in the aftertaste but their inclusion in a “full Somerset” breakfast benefits the plate, livening up savoury flavours and balancing out bitterness from the tomatoes.
Read the full review: Lord Poulett Arms
