The Very Best…Breakfast

All

The first in our regular monthly challenges to discover the very best this month comes from Sam Ward (@Vogue_Ismybible)

Breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day, especially on Sundays. The morning after the night before, when we gather with weary friends to dissect the antics of the previous evening, often with shrieks or heads buried in hands. This kind of gathering calls for something spectacular; earthy, heart-warming and with the ability to soak up the dregs of our alcohol-enriched devastation.

Where to find the best breakfast in Leeds is one of the questions I get asked the most – and I’m not talking eggs Benedict here – I’m thinking of the kind of breakfast that you can feel clogging your arteries, the kind that calls for a brisk walk or, better still, another four hours sleep. The humble Full English:

Eggs – softly scrambled, not rubbery (the texture of which reminds me of a certain scene in Hannibal). Bacon – Crispy, yet soft. Beans. Tomato – fresh and grilled. Sausage – hint of spice. Black pudding – if you like that kind of thing. Mushrooms – fried. Toast – buttered and, perhaps most importantly, the hash brown. I’ve lost track of the amount of restaurants and cafes I’ve been to that don’t include hash browns with their breakfast offering. It’s unacceptable. Lastly, there needs to be a proper brew. I have to admit to working for Yorkshire Tea at this point, so a good strong cup of tea is absolutely essential. Extra points will be awarded for places that offer bang for your buck; not cheap, but the very best ingredients for the price.

I appreciate that everyone has their own view on what a good old fry-up should look like, so we want to gather your views on where you can find the very best breakfast in Leeds. We will then shortlist three, visit them all, taste their bountiful breakfasts and choose a winner based on the criteria above.

So here’s what you need to do!

Suggest your favourite breakfast in Leeds – use the comments box below. Wax lyrical. Make our mouths water.  Let them know you’ve entered them, ask them to get people commenting online here too. If you are a cafe and you make the very best breakfast don’t be shy. Blow your trumpet. Get people to endorse you.

We will be shortlisting and visiting the venues on the 19th-21st January with an announcement of the winner on the weekend of the 26th January.

 

45 comments

  1. Love Tasty Oakwood, lovely bacon, they’ll swap bits in and out, cook bits differently and all the time friendly.

  2. It’s got to be The Greedy Pig, doesn’t it? Gourmet breakfast for greasy spoon prices. Love everything about that place.

  5. Full Circle do lovely breakfasts! All fresh and organic too, and they give you loads! Absolutely love it.

  6. Tasty Oakwood is definitely the best place in Leeds for breakfast. Locally sourced meats, fresh homemade bread, amazing coffees and the BEST homemade cakes! Highly recommended to all. There’s no breakfast like a Tasty breakfast!

  7. Another vote for Tasty Oakwood. Saved me from many a nasty hangover with their incredible bacon sandwiches (you get a choice of bread and it’s packed with bacon), amazing full Englishes (no egg, extra hash brown please) and cans of Rubicon to replenish blood sugar and wash it all down with whilst reading the paper and cursing the joggers on their way to Roundhay park. Oh and you can buy cakes to take home with you to have later!

  8. Oh forgot to mention, they’ll even make you breakfast when the lunch menu’s started…perfect for those times when you fall into bed at 4 am and crawl out at 1 pm.

  9. Tasty! Oakwood, absolutely! Tasty food and tasty prices, not to mention service with a smile 🙂

  12. Clock Cafe in Hyde Park is great and good value too.

    In the city centre I love Hepworth’s Deli in Thornton’s Arcade. As well as bacon or sausage sarnies (on Anthony’s bread) they do great naughty breakfasts like French toast, pancakes and other America-like stuff. It’s also a nice place.

  13. On a Saturday it has to be sebbys deli! Best bacon sandwiches around. Breakfast burritos are amaaaaaazing too

  14. Fannos in Meanwood – lovely little cafe, really good choice of food from traditional full englishes to roasted veg and goats cheese delights. Their bacon sandwiches are second to none 🙂

  16. Emmaus Leeds does a fab breakfast, full works with toast and a Cracking cup of tea. Also do a veggie breakfast as well. They not open Sundays however the breakfast is available all Day Mon to Sat. And it’s a charity so you are helping to support them.

  17. I love the breakfast roll in Sebbys Deli in Headingly. Near impossible to eat without making a mess. Very tasty and real fun. Serve great coffee too and the owners are so nice.

  18. Might be some way out of town, but take your pick of any number of places in Otley….Pink Teapot springs to mind

  21. The Mansion in Roundhay park does a lovely breakfast. Eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes in a bun although it is much better than that description.

    PinchePinche in Chapel Allerton also does great breakfasts (Mexican though, not English) and their breakfast burrito (scrambled eggs, sausage, black beans etc) is very good.

    Napa on street lane is another good place for breakfast. They do loads from the full English to the eggs benedict

    My favourite place would be Gilchrists in Moortown. It’s a bakery and they do really good bacon (& more) butties to takeaway but they also have a cafe hidden in the back

  23. Timoney’s in Oakwood is hard to beat. Full English for Himself, giant pancakes with sliced banana and syrup for me, a decent cuppa, great coffee and a warm welcome for all.

  24. Fanoos in Meanwood do an ace breakfast, also Greedy Pig if you’re the other end of the same road!

  25. The Bakery Coffee House at Golden Acre Park is perfect for breakfast especially as you can walk off this guilty pleasure in lovely surroundings

  26. VINeataly at Granary wharf have just launched a breakfast menu. Probably too soon to do well in your poll. but its lovely, you should all give it a try.

  27. Over on Globetroffers we went on the Leeds breakfast trail – and after extensive research and a quasi scientific approach we decided the best breakfast in Leeds was at Harvey Nichols. Of course it’s not the cheapest but the quality of the ingredients were streets ahead of its competitors.

    Have a read:

    http://globetroffers.com/category/breakfast/

    1. The ingredient quality is there, but the quality of preparation is poor: erratic at best. Don’t expect your £16 breakfast to receive the same attention as your £8 starter, 3 hours later. Like the Hilton and the Radisson, these aren’t breakfasts prepared with care and love. Both bacon and sausage appear to be baked on trays by a hungover kitchen porter. I’ve eaten their twice and complained twice. When they comped me, it wasn’t any improvement. For the price, the breakfasts are an embarrassment. Not that the clientele seem to care. But breakfast at Harvey Nicks has never just been about the grub, has it?

  28. Tasty! Both headingley and oakwood. Their full English has been a life saver many times after a killer hangover! I’m very picky about my eggs and theirs are always perfectly done and love that they only do free range. Staff are always so friendly and they always have a today’s newspapers. The coffee is excellent also and not instant!

  29. Cafe Lento in Headingley, Speaking for the vegetarian breakfast clientele, I reckon you can’t do better. You get proper veggie sausages(not those ones which are essentially sausage shaped vegetable mush) and everything else: the eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and even the toast (MY GOD THE TOAST) is cooked to perfection. The tea and coffee is always superb and the staff are super lovely (with excellent taste in music) AND the place is rammed full of books and board games to while away a Sunday afternoon, what more could you want?

    PS For the more carnivorously minded I have it on my father’s authority, a well traveled man who’s had many a breakfast, that Cafe Lento do the best Bacon in England.

  30. The joy of a weekend breakfast has always been about the atmosphere, almost as much as it has the food. Taking your time reading the Saturday or Sunday papers, tackling the crossword, or just people-watching; all over a steady supply of hot tea and something with enough substance and flavour to kick start your day (no matter what time it is).

    Tasty! in Oakwood ticks all the boxes. Welcoming atmosphere in abundance, a wide selection of hot drinks (I personally recommend the special hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows – and yes, that does go with breakfast) and a range of delicious breakfast sandwiches on a choice of breads. I went for a simple sausage and egg bap most recently, which elsewhere would be boring stodge, but the quality of Tasty!’s ingredients means you are never disappointed. Why not make breakfast into brunch and throw in a portion of fat-cut chips and a slice of one of Sugar Rose’s fantastic cakes on the side to seal the deal?…

  31. A good breakfast is such a hard meal to find when you’re out in any town I’ve found. I’m a bit picky, I like to know there are free range eggs and good quality sausages being served.

    I wish more places did breakfast, but my favourite in Leeds so far has to be The Greedy Pig with Harvey Nichols being a close second.

  32. Over on the wessside I’d go to Armley for a crop of ace breakfast venues. There are some brilliant greasy spoon caffs in Armley and you won’t go far wrong at Cafe Florence on Branch Road – Italian breakfast is HUGE, and the coffee’s great. It’s a tiny place, the owners are lovely, the food tastes good & it’s got charm and personality in abundance – mainly because the staff are fab and that’s as important as the food on the plate (for me). Though…having spent a little time there last year, they’d probably be more delighted if they were nominated for best spag boll – a recipe Leon has adapted from his mate at Salvo’s. Other than that, I like LS6 – for a good veggie breakfast with a game of chess.

  33. It might go against the purists view of what and where a good breakfast should be, but this all changes when you have small children and a stretch out from the city centre, Cookridge Hall Health & Fitness serves a tremendous ‘Healthy Breakfast’.

    Very splendid poached eggs with consistently just the right amount of ‘run’, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and toast. And there are toys and plenty of room for the kids to play both inside and out. It’s a winner! http://www.cookridgehall.co.uk/health/

  34. try out full circle on kikrstall road – its a great little venue and it does a great vegan and veggie and meat all day breakfast in leeds every saturday all day!

  36. The best has to be the Greedy Pig. Really good ingredients, brilliantly executed and astounding value. Excellent coffee. The compromise is that the pig is a little on the small side and doesn’t feel like the sort of place where it’s nice to linger over the papers at the weekend. And not open Sunday.

    If it’s Sunday and the Pig is closed, the Reliance just up the road is a good alternative. Lots of interesting extras – bubble and squeek, really nice fresh mushroom and tomato, good black pudding, nicely cooked, slightly runny scramble eggs. The only downsides are much more expensive than the pig, coffee not as good, and they aren’t always that good at synchronising the arrival of toast and main event, so you have to crack on without the toast, or sit watching it get cold while you wait for the toast to arrive.

    In Chapel Allerton, Crust and Crumb do a very good breakfast – really good ingredients – Lishmans sausage, bacon and black pudding, fresh mushroom and tomato, toast from bread freshly baked on the premises. The downsides are it isn’t the biggest breakfast, they only do fried eggs, and I like scrambled, and the (excellent) coffee is extra, so looking at a relatively expensive £8 for the works. I tend to prefer a sausage sandwich and a flat white as it feels better value. Comfortable and cosy place to sit and read the paper too.

    Zed in CA are usually quite reliable – good portions and everything pretty nice without anything being out of this world. I am sure the others in the Arc chain (Nappa, Arc, Kobe) are similar.

    I haven’t been blown away by Taste in Oakwood. At £6 including coffee, it’s good value for a big plateful, but they had tinned tomato instead of fresh, and the scrambled eggs were on the over-cooked/rubbery side, with decidedly average coffee compared to what’s on offer at the Pig or Crust and Crumb.

    1. Hi Andy, Thanks for your feedback, we have always given the customer the option of grilled tomato but generally tinned are pretty my much the preferred option in 95% of cases, as a result of this feedback we are now offering grilled at time of order. No excuse for the overdone scrambled though, I’ve spoken to my kitchen staff & they have promised no repeat of this. Thanks Paul @ Tasty!

  37. Also forgot to mention Browns in town. Yes, a chain, but the breakfasts aren’t bad at all. Had breakfast there on my wedding day.

  38. I can’t get enough of poached eggs on toast and it’s usually what I’d choose for brunch out and about if the veggie breakfast option looks a bit disheartening. Truly Scrummy in Horsforth do REALLY good poached eggs. Good size portions, real butter on the toast and just the right amount of ooze from the egg. Yum! My other oeuf de choice would be Roundhay Park. I like nothing better than a cup of tea and much-maligned eggy breakfast watching all the Sunday keenos tearing round the park. Teamed with a paper and the intention of not much more than a post-egg legg stretch, I’d say it’s a good breakfast outing in Leeds – although not on a par with the mega breakfast venues others have touted for.

  39. I have to put this in with a bit of a disclaimer as I do a few weekend shifts there..but hepworths in thornton’s arcade for a city centre breakfast. Pancakes, eggs benedict, eggs florentine. And the sausage sandwich. (sausages from price’s butchers, lately of Leeds markets).

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