Penny Blood's Black Book - My Independent Guide to London » Breakfast

The Happy Kitchen, e5 Bake House, Arch 389 Furniture

Penny Blood — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:01:01 +0000

So I’ve recently moved house, my flatmate got a cat that peed on everything, I couldn’t handle it so it was a ‘me or the cat’ situation. The cat won, I moved out. Oh well it worked out better in the end as now I’m nearer to good places to go for breakfast, a couple of them only being a stones throw from my house. Almost secret, tucked away behind the main road and right next to London fields is a row of railway arches housing The Happy Kitchen, e5 Bake House and Arch 389 Furniture, three great places not to be missed when visiting Broadway market.

The Happy Kitchen
The Happy Kitchen is my new favourite place to have breakfast. Housed in a railway arch, it’s one of those chic on a budget kind of places with a good lick of white paint and basic country kitchen wooden furniture. They serve cakes, coffee, sandwiches and excellent breakfasts. Their ingredients must cost a fortune though as everything is very healthy and served in decent sized portions which makes it good value for money. Last time I went I didn’t have enough money so they said I could pay them back later, that was nice of them wasn’t it. Additionally they sell grains in Perspex containers by weight so you can take your healthy eating home with you if you want.

www.happykitchen.org.uk

The Happy Kitchen, 393 Mentmore Terrace, London E8 3
020 8525 4994
Mon 8am-3pm; Tue-Fri 8am-7pm; Sat 9am-6pm; Sun 10am-6pm

E5 Bake House
Next door to the Happy Kitchen is the e5 bakery. Also in a railway arch they bake the bread at the back in plain view and you can either buy loaves to go or have a coffee and some toast and jam at the front. I find it so exciting choosing which bread to buy and it being taken warm off the shelf and put into a brown paper bag, I feel like I’ve gone back 50 years in time. There is a little farmers market nearby on a Sunday and when I was buying some broccoli the other day a lady came up next to me and asked the farmer if everything was organic, when he replied “no”, the look on the women’s face was as if someone had told her that her kid was ugly, it was a priceless awkward moment.

www.e5bakehouse.com

e5 Bake House, Arch 395, Mentmore Terrace, London E8 3PH
0754 830 0244
Monday – Sunday 7am – 7pm

Arch 389
This is such a good retro furniture shop. I bought a nice beveled mirror here once. They have lots of funny little chairs and nice desks, it’s not that cheap but everything has been carefully selected. It’s the sort of stuff you find at car boot sales in Hereford for about £10 but I can’t be bothered to go to Hereford so there.

www.facebook.com/arch389

Arch 389, Mentmore Terrace, London E8 3PN
Tues-Wed; 9am – 2pm, Thur-Fri; 9am – 4pm, Sat; 9am – 5pm

Providores

Penny Blood — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:14:39 +0000

So I have this friend, Alexa, she’s got fancy taste, especially when it comes to restaurants. If you ask her her favourite restaurant, no doubt she’ll reply Arbutus or Wild Honey. Nonetheless her likes are varied and she knows a good restaurant when she sees one, whether it’s Rocca or the Stockpot she’s no snob, an omelette is just as good as steak tartare. We met a while back whilst working for the same crazy boss who had taken to urinating in a jar and cleaning out his ears with the end of a biro, as you can imagine we bonded over a shared disgust in our day to day reality. That and our love of restaurants and cafes. Now Marylebone has several places worthy of note including one of Alexa’s favourite’s, ‘Providores’. Known for it’s exceptional restaurant upstairs Providores also has a more relaxed tapas room downstairs serving things like brown rice, apple, maple syrup and miso porridge with tamarillo compote or French toast stuffed with banana and pecans with grilled smoked streaky bacon and vanilla verjus syrup. It’s owned by New Zealanders so features alot of weird New Zealand stuff like Vegemite. I don’t mind this though. I like people from New Zealand.

http://www.theprovidores.co.uk/

The Providores, 109 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4RX
020 7935 6175
Monday – Friday 9am-10:30pm; Saturday 10am-10:30pm; Sunday 10am-10pm

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Breads Etcetera

Penny Blood — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:56:42 +0000

Take this for a concept, all you can eat toast. It’s a nifty idea and we all like a good gimmick. Each table has it’s own Dualit toaster and there is a selection of lots of different freshly baked bread and a variety of jams and spreads to choose from along with various side dishes. There are all kinds of breakfasts you can order as well if toast isn’t your thing. They’ve nailed the lighting too – red brick walls, wooden floors and framed mirrors on the walls make it all very cosy. I come for the hot chocolate, they make it French-style using liquid chocolate rather than powder. Breads etcetera alone is worth crossing the river for.

Breads Etcetera, 127 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7SS
07717 642812
Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am-10.00pm Sunday 10.00am-4.00pm

The Elk in the Woods

Penny Blood — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:36:13 +0000

The Elk in the Woods has to be mentioned because it’s a beauty. Located on a great little backstreet behind Upper Street, home to lots of boutiques, cafes and antique shops, it’s a great place to come for any meal or just a drink although breakfast is my favourite, how can you beat pancakes with baked cinnamon pears, goats cheese yogurt and maple syrup? The pretty green tiling, wooden furniture, open fireplace, ornate leather arm chairs and stag antlers give it a convincing ski lodge appeal and is what make this bar come cafe come restaurant quite special. The food is good and I love the way they don’t over crowd the place with too much furniture when they easily could to cram in more customers, that’s classy I’d say.

http://www.the-elk-in-the-woods.co.uk

The Elk in the Woods, 37-39 Camden Passage, London N1 8EA
020 7226 3535
Monday-Friday 8:30am-10:30pm; Saturday 10:30am-10:30pm; Sunday 10:30am-9:30pm

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Hackney Pearl

Penny Blood — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:54:57 +0000

Hackney Wick is clearly on the up and the Hackney Pearl is definitely a symbol of that. Oh don’t worry the area still looks like a deserted wasteland fit only for amateur fashion shoots, but salvaged Formica tables, school chairs and copies of the Observer are a slap across the face reminder of where we’re at now over in the Wick. For quite a while people seemed reluctant to open any kind of business as the area was rife with gypsies who’d been kicked out of (sorry re-housed), Stratford due to the upcoming Olympics. However so far so good as the Hackney Pearl looks to be attracting all the RIGHT KINDS of people. The staff here look like either extras from a music video but are really friendly all the same. The food is good but expensive and the carrot cake is off-the-scale delicious. It’s the kind of place where they cook muffins there and then and leave them on the counter as if your grandmother just made them. The spacious interior is styled so perfectly it rivals any established café in London. I stuck it in breakfast but it’s also a bar and does lunch and dinner too, all good, if somewhat a little too pricey.

http://thehackneypearl.com/

Hackney Pearl, 11 Prince Edward Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5LX
0208 510 3605
Tuesday – Saturday: 10am until 11pm Sunday: 10am until 6pm

Counter Cafe (and Container Cafe)

Penny Blood — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:23:15 +0000

You might think that there wasn’t much in Hackney Wick and that’s because there isn’t apart from a lot of unemployed people who call themselves artists. Anyway for months I’d been going to a fairly nasty cafe as there wasn’t anywhere else. Then a great little place opened up, eclectic and quirky, like sitting in a film students living room and serving great food and proper coffee too, sadly it had to close as the Irish gypsy’s, sorry “travellers” kept nicking their stuff and the boys who ran it basically got bored of having to go to work everyday (they didn’t think of that when they opened it). In light of this I was so pleased to discover the Counter Cafe as it’s a great cafe by all standards. Run by Kiwi’s (and you know what they say about kiwis, they’re like people from Brooklyn, you’ll never meet one you don’t like). Hidden away deep in Hackney Wick, next to the canal and surrounded by artist warehouses, it’s a bit like London’s answer to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It’s still pretty industrial but ever so slowly on the rise as it’s right on the border of the Olympic zone. The cafe itself attracts all the locals from builders to artists but mainly artists and is known in that area as ‘the posh cafe’, due to the exposed brick walls, wooden counters, leather chairs and fancy menu serving everything from soup and salad to posh sandwiches and Eggs Benedict. There is also a mezzanine level with a stunning view of the Olympic park, they really nailed the location on that one.

This is the view from the mezzanine, pretty good don’t you think!

http://www.thecountercafe.co.uk

4 Roach Road, London E3 2PA
07952 696 388
Monday – Friday 7.30am – 5pm (Thursday 11pm serving Tapas)
Saturday 8.30am – 5pm Sunday 9.30am – 5pm

Now it’s worth mentioning the Container Cafe (so named because it’s made out of container units) because it’s owned by the same people as the Counter cafe. They got themselves a sweet deal as being located just on the edge of the Olympic park they are the sole place for the Olympic tours to stop for coffee or lunch (although I don’t think this was a coincidence) . The Container Cafe is as cute as the Counter Cafe with a more limited menu but equally delicious. However it is overrun with old retirees in giant hiking trainers, kids on a school trip who couldn’t give a shit about the Olympics and fat tourists. There is a nice little outdoor seating area which looks like a kids play park but is infact a ‘sculpture park’ with the most pointless ‘sculptures’ that look like budget flower boxes covered in signs telling people ‘not to touch’ I don’t knw what that’s all about.

Container Cafe, View Tube, The Greenway, London E15 2PJ
07530 274 160
Monday – Sunday 9.00am – 5.00pm

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Rochelle Canteen

Penny Blood — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:35:34 +0000

The best thing about this place is the fact that you would never know it was here unless you knew it was here. Part of a school and hidden behind a tall brick wall, you have to ring a buzzer to get in. This may sound intimidating and I had been putting off going for ages as I was expecting something swank but instead I found that it is really laid back and really minimalist. Not totally unlike a school canteen just a lot smaller and classier. It’s very intimate and quite cosy despite being stark white with a breakfast board that reads: toast and jam, porridge, scrambled eggs on toast – no frills then… except it is high end stuff and really delicious. Lunch is usually weird yet interesting and just as good.

http://www.arnoldandhenderson.com

Rochelle Canteen, Rochelle School House, Arnold Circus, London, E2 7ES
020 77295677
Monday – Friday 9.30am-4pm Lunch 12pm-3pm Closed evenings, weekends and bank holidays

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Little Georgia

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:57:37 +0000

When funds are low Little Georgia fits the bill nicely as nothing is more than about £10. It’s tiny and laid back with nostalgic photos, wooden tables, and an open kitchen provoking the feeling of getting lost in the Georgian wilderness and happily stumbling across a small village where some kindly soul takes you in and cooks you a hearty meal. The food seems effortlessly excellent and wholesome with a good variety, all with unpronounceable names and the bean stew is delicious even after my friend Eva’s fingers have been rooting around in it for the pomegranate seeds. They don’t serve alcohol so you need to bring your own but the corkage is free and there are plenty of places on Broadway market to go after for a drink if you run out. At weekends they do the best breakfast, ‘Chizzie BIzzie’, it’s basically an English breakfast but nothing like it, that’s all i’m saying, they do a vegetarian option too.

Little Georgia, 87 Goldsmiths Row, Bethnal Green, London, E2 8QR
020 7739 8154
Monday 9am-5pm Tuesday-Saturday 9am-11pm Sunday 10am-11pm

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The Premises

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:42:42 +0000

A great breakfast spot, attached to the side of the music studios, the walls at The Premises are covered with pictures of the people who have recorded here. This makes keeping eye contact with the person you are with slightly difficult as I find my eye wandering over the pictures of Nina Simone and Lily Allen. It’s also the place to watch groups of hung-over indie-kids eating giant fry-ups. Premises is the best place to come for a good English breakfast where you can pick and choose how to make up your own: whether its scrambled or poached eggs; baked beans, tomato or both; eggs benedict with sausage and mushrooms… it’s all covered. It’s a small space, bustling and noisy, and it’s usually packed which gives it a great atmosphere.

http://www.premisesstudios.com/PremisesCafe.html

The Premises, 209 Hackney Road, London E2 8JL
0207 684 2230
Breakfasts from 8am through to Dinner (5pm-11pm)

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Fifteen (Jamie Oliver)

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:42:05 +0000

My uncle caused a huge fuss at Fifteen about not getting enough attention from the staff, I mean who can blame them, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were at the neighbouring table after all. Anyway he dealt with his displeasure by shouting at the waiter and promptly getting kicked out. His secretary called up the next day to apologise and explain that there must have been some misunderstanding but was quickly informed that he was already ‘flagged’ since the last time he came he got so drunk he fell asleep at the table. You can’t help who your relatives are.

The first time I came I had the taster menu not realising there were 15 courses. I ate everything that came at me with such gusto that by the end of it I was feeling so full I had to throw up in the bathroom. Having said all this, breakfast here is delightful. Quite a difference experience from having an evening meal as it’s in the brasserie upstairs rather than the posh dining room downstairs. It’s laid back and everything is thought out with care without charging the earth and the service is excellent. The exposed brick walls and honest British food (as much toast as you want) make it quite possibly my favourite spot for breakfast. It’s very popular so on a weekend you may have to queue but the turn over is quick enough and you can watch the chefs making pasta while you wait.

http://www.fifteen.net/restaurants/fifteenlondon/Pages/default.aspx

Fifteen, 15 Westland Place, London, N1 7LP
0871 330 1515
(Breakfast) Monday to Saturday: 7.30am – 11.00am Sunday: 8.00am – 11.00am
(Lunch) Monday to Saturday: midday – 3.00pm Sunday: midday – 3.30pm
(Dinner) Monday to Saturday: 6.00pm – 10.00pm Sunday: 6.00pm – 9.30pm