Bread Street Kitchen - St Paul's

On one corner of the modern, sleek One New change shopping and dining complex, Bread Street Kitchen is one of an ever growing list of restaurants under the Gordon Ramsey banner.  On a weekday this area is bustling with City boys and girls and breakfast is served from 7-11am according to the website.  On the weekend it is all a little bit quieter; in fact when we arrived at about twenty five past eleven on Saturday morning, for our 11.30 booking, we couldn’t get in because it doesn’t open until bang on that time it would seem.  So we were first into the huge dining area upstairs.  Luckily it soon filled up, although it was probably only 60% full the whole time we were there.

The website describes the style of the restaurant as “A stunning mix of vintage and modern”.  I’m not sure about that, but the floor to ceiling windows, and warehouse feel make for a great vibe when the place is lively (and not so good when it is quiet).  The tens of desk lamps scattered around can either be interrupted as quirky and fun or unnecessarily kitsch.  

We were served by a rather wackily dressed waiter, ordered some coffee and it arrived with some freshly baked mini baguettes, which were delicious; it is a bread kitchen after all.  But be warned this is a restaurant that does a fry-up not a café; there is a £2 cover charge for that mini flute!  The coffee was excellent and the service overall was good. Our water was constantly being topped up, but there was too much of the “how is the food” and “can I get you anything else” malarkey.

So onto the food – the weekend brunch menu is only served until 1pm, so it is only a short window if you're ever after a fry-up here on a Saturday or Sunday.  Other brunchy type things like eggs benedict and buttermilk pancakes were available, but let’s not dwell on those.  The fry was priced at £11.95 and for that you get two eggs cooked the way you want (I choose poached), bacon, a sausage, mushroom and grilled tomato, served with white and brown toast. The eggs were absolutely perfect, they say the fresher the eggs the better they poach so I can only assume these were straight from the farm that morning.  The sausage had great flavour and the bacon was sweetcured and soft.  However, it wasn’t all perfect – The flat mushroom was heavily and unnecessarily peppered, which overpowered the plate a little.  The toast was fine, but I had expected more after the fresh bread we had beforehand.  And overall it was a bit on the small side when you consider you have shelled out 12 quid for it.

The verdict

High quality ingredients in a nice setting, but not cheap.  Shame about the mushroom.

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