English breakfast served with flair at The Stafford.

Breakfast at The Stafford is a case of "traditional is best"

Nothing gives you the flavour of a hotel so well as the breakfast.

Some cheaper hotels just have toast and jam; others have strange contemporary mixtures; but The Stafford has a fine version of the traditional English breakfast – which brought back pleasant memories of a similar experience I blogged about at the Cavendish Hotel.

There are other options; for instance I could have had Poor Knights of Windsor (an English variation on French toast, I gather).  However, English breakfast was what I wanted.  Those of a squeamish disposition please note that it comes with both black pudding and kidneys as standard.  Now I do like my black pudding but kidneys are beyond the pale for me, so I had to remember to ask for them not to be included.

When I got down to breakfast at about nine, there didn’t seem to be any staff about and I had to find a table myself and wait a couple of minutes; however, as soon as one of the waiting staff did emerge (I suspect there may have been a little flurry of breakfast orders to cope with, as quite a few people appeared to have just started) she came straight over, apologised for the wait, and organised coffee and toast for me as well as the menu.  Further good feelings were stoked by a very genuine smile from the manager when she came to take my order – convincing me, though I hadn’t thought of doing so, to have the fresh berries to start.

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Fresh berries are a lovely touch as a prelude to a traditional English breakfast at The Stafford (image credit below)

Raspberries and quartered strawberries provided colour and sweetness, while blueberries and fresh blackberries gave a welcome tartness to the dish – a nice generous portion, too.  And meanwhile, I’d found the table was big enough to read the newspaper at the same time as eating my breakfast – all too rare at hotel breakfasts.

The main course included crisp bacon, a quite soft black pudding, tasty lean sausage, half a tomato and fried mushrooms with scrambled egg.  There was no grease at all and everything was nicely cooked and served with the tomato ketchup which I’d also requested.

Now I am always on the lookout for what marmalade is being used.

I think marmalade is a bit like the hotel toiletries selection (though obviously, you don’t want to try spreading shampoo on your toast) in that you can tell quite a lot about a hotel by what they provide.

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A generous portion of honey always gets brownie points (image credit below)

This time the marmalade passed with flying colours: a nice big jar (no tiny plastic-wrapped portions or mini-pots that aren’t quite enough for one piece of toast) – quite dark and fairly coarsely cut.  To my delight, there was also a strongly-flavoured Welsh wildflower honey, again in a nice big pot.

Other plus points?  Warm milk in a silver jug with my cafetiere of coffee; extra coffee was volunteered, and didn’t have to be asked for; and I generally felt very welcome and well looked after.  It may well be one of the best London hotel breakfasts around and is highly recommended.

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Photo credits: The Stafford London (Kempinski),  eblaser, AKSO.

Disclosure: Andrea was a guest of The Stafford London.

Tagged as: Stafford Hotel