The Wolseley: The Art of Breakfasting

Mr Random has breakfasting at The Wolseley in Piccadilly down to a fine art.

The staff have his direct line. He skips through the door confidently as he exhibits the mutual love and respect between them. A breakfast without at least three unplanned fortuitous meetings would be unthinkable; The Wolseley is his office and his playground.

I had previously eaten at The Wolseley approximately two and a half times. The half because I had been taken for dinner with a good friend, a vegetarian, who unreasonably banned me from eating fois gras and meat. The other two times had been forgettable, not because The Wolseley had underperformed, but because I had - by suffering from drinks-related ailments.

So when Mr Random, a stalwart of the advertising industry (who coined his own name on account of bumping into me randomly three times), invited me to The Wolseley, I knew this was going to be the real thing; the Pixie to my Katie Waissel, the Coke to my Pepsi.

There are a few things to the art of breakfasting:

Sitting at the right table
"It used to be a car showroom, now it's a people showroom,” my companion says. “You can have that one," he adds mischievously. And indeed it is. We sit in a banquette intimate enough for good conversation, but open to see and be seen. Normally I would object to this sort of behaviour, but his working of the room as streams of people who knew him came to our table, made fascinating viewing.

Wearing statement attire
My companion was encased in top-to-toe purple. A peacock designed to be looked at, with the fabulous addition of striking cufflinks fashioned from Viagra pills. If you’re a girl, Louboutins help.


Ordering unembarrassing food
Think carefully before ordering the fully stuffed bacon roll. This is akin to ordering spaghetti on a first date. Don’t do it. The expectation is that you eat as you talk. Be ready to jump up and greet. To say I have been caught out on occasion is a huge understatement. AA Gill once wrote an ode to porridge for his first review of The Wolseley. Now I know why.

And so to the food.

My companion ordered classic eggs benedict with coffee.


I had scrambled eggs on white toast with slats of bacon.

The scrambled eggs were perfectly set, with that slight creamy wibble (and you know how I like wibble). The bacon had edges of crispness. If I wasn't in a people showroom, I would have shovelled the clouds of scrambled eggs with a rasher in my mouth. But I didn't want to embarrass my companion, so I resisted.


Some English Breakfast tea, fresh orange juice and fruity chat washed the breakfast down - a breakfast elegant but hearty helped by the impeccable service.

I could write a whole other post on the art of conversation, but shall leave that for another time when the artist, Mr Random, next decides to exhibit.

The Wolseley
160 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9EB
020 7449 6996

A treat from Barry

Ah, for those who read about Barry's love for coffee, he's sent us a hello from Harlem. Enjoy the smoulder!

Will you eschew the new instant brew?

My mate Barry loves coffee.

He loves coffee so much that when he grows up he wants to be a Starbucks barista. Never mind that he’s grafting for his MBA in New York - that’s just the first step to becoming top barista aka CEO.

So when I was invited to smell, slurp and savour Starbuck’s instant brew with a couple of other bloggers, Barry’s Glaswegian lilt popped into my head. After all, he would wrinkle his nose up at instant in an instant. And as I’m not a particular Starbucks-lover, I asked myself - would he love this? Would he give up his ritualistic brewing ways for a gratifying quick-fix caffeine hit? In fact would it be gratifying at all?

What Starbucks doesn’t really have to do is convince on taste. Yes I’ve had the odd burnt coffee in-house now and then, but I blame that on a barista’s slip of the hand rather than the basic quality of coffee. I had absolutely no doubt that the new Starbucks VIA would taste anything less than marvellous when pitched against another brand of instant brew. And indeed it did.

I’m sure Barry would know the real thing from the instant, as I did when tested. But half the room of bloggers didn’t. So instant-brew kind-of-almost wins against the freshly brewed stuff by getting a mixed response.

Now don’t get me wrong - Barry’s not a purist by any means. He jams frozen potato waffles into toasters and loves shortcuts as much as the next person. But for him, coffee is so much more than just a taste.

It’s the backbone of his working day - his guilty pleasure, his fag break.

For him the ceremony is as enjoyable as the slurping – the scoop of the grounds, the warming smell that fills the house followed by that reward of exotic black liquor in a beloved mug.

And clever ol’ Starbucks has caught onto this. The feelings that coffee evokes, that is. They’ve engaged the heavyweights from the food world – Kevin Gould, of Guardian and Waitrose Food Illustrated fame, and Professor Charles Spence – a pioneer of ‘neurogastronomy’ (how environment influences our interpretation of food and drink) who’s worked with Heston Blumenthal on the menu and atmosphere of certain Fat Duck dishes (like ‘sound of the sea’, for which you plug in iPod earphones while you eat).

Gould telling us we live in the age of sophistication

Composers commissioned to devise music that increases your coffee-drinking pleasure, formulas cracked by Prof Spence that tell us the perfect time to quaff (11am for those who are curious. Most of us, including Winnie-the-Pooh, were already familiar with the joy of elevenses), Starbucks certainly has been busy. And Gould tells us that he personally does serve his unwitting guests VIA after dinner, followed by a ‘ta da’ moment when he reveals the cheat.

All this is admirable to say the least. But does this enhance the instant coffee? Only as much as it would enhance a filter coffee - it's not quite foie-gras to the sound of trumpets. My advice to Starbucks would be to upgrade those who swear by other instants. Wow them with your jazzy technology.

Yes it is better than the nearest instant brew and no it isn’t the same as my lovingly filtered cup of joe. I will be using VIA in cakes. Delia’s coffee and walnut to be precise. And I doubt the Barrys of this world will be turned.

Well, not until he becomes CEO.