The 15 Best Breakfasts in London (2026)

The classic caffs. Regency Café has been on a Westminster back street since 1946, and its Art Deco room has been a film set for Layer Cake, Pride and Rocketman. It's one of the cheapest proper breakfasts in central London: the Set Breakfast is £9.99 for an egg, two rashers of bacon, a sausage, beans or tomatoes and toast, with a tea or coffee included. It opens at 7am, Monday to Saturday. Nobody takes your order at the table: you pay at the till and grab whatever seat is free, usually at someone else's table. The trade-off is that it's plain cooking in a packed room, and it's closed on Sundays. Pimlico station is eight minutes' walk.

Andrew's is the caff I'd use for an early start in the centre: it opens at 6:30am on weekdays, and it has been family-run since 1960. Its current home is at 59 Gray's Inn Road, seven minutes from Chancery Lane. The Full English is £11.80 with two hash browns and a tea or coffee, and Andrew's Breakfast (£12.50) doubles the eggs, bacon and sausage. The room is no-frills, with wipe-down tables and a builders-and-office-workers crowd, and that's the point. It closes at 2pm on Saturday and all day Sunday.

Beppe's opened in 1932 opposite St Bartholomew's Hospital, on the edge of Smithfield meat market, and it's still run by the family of its founder, Giuseppe Papini. It opens at 6:30am, Monday to Friday, for nurses, market workers and anyone with an early train from Farringdon, five minutes away. The menu is cooked breakfasts, bacon sandwiches, toasted ciabattas and rolls. There's no website or online menu, so the prices are whatever's on the board. It's a small room that fills quickly, and it's shut at weekends and after 2pm.

E. Pellicci is my pick for a full English in London. The Pellicci family has run this Bethnal Green Road caff since 1900, and the carved wooden panelling, made in 1946 by a carpenter who was a regular, is Grade II listed. The Classic Set is £14.60 (Cumberland sausage, egg, bacon, mushrooms, beans, tomatoes and fried bread or toast), and Have The Lot adds black and white pudding and a hash brown for £17.60. It's still run by the family, and they work the room themselves. It's more expensive than a typical caff, the tables are small and shared, and it's walk-in only, so Saturday mornings mean a wait. It opens at 8am, Monday to Saturday. Bethnal Green station is five minutes away.

Terry's has been on Great Suffolk Street in Southwark since 1982, a short walk from Borough Market and Tate Modern. It's a caff that has gone slightly upmarket: the coffee is from Monmouth and the bread from St John Bakery. The Standard (egg, bacon, Cumberland sausage, beans and tomatoes) is £15.50, and The Works adds bubble and squeak, black pudding and mushrooms for £18.50. You're paying brunch prices for caff food, and a 10% service charge is added, though it's optional. What it has over the older caffs is that it's open every day from 7:30am, Sundays included, and you can book on OpenTable. Borough station is five minutes away.

Maria's has been a café inside Borough Market since 1961, and Borough Market's own blog calls it an institution. Breakfast runs from 8am to noon. The full breakfast is £14.50, and the thing to make sure is on your plate is the bubble and squeak. A breakfast roll to take away is £5.75 with one filling and £6.75 with two, which is the better deal if you're walking the market anyway, because eating in adds 10%. It's a small counter café, not a restaurant, and it gets crowded once the market is busy. Monday opening varies, so call before a Monday visit. London Bridge station is six minutes away.

Grand cafés and hotel dining rooms. The Wolseley is the London breakfast room. The building on Piccadilly was designed in 1921 as a car showroom for Wolseley Motors, became a bank in 1927 and has been a grand café since 2003. It's two minutes from Green Park. Breakfast starts at 7am on weekdays and 8am at weekends, with last orders at 11:30am. The English is £24.50 and the kedgeree, rice with smoked haddock and a poached egg, is £25.50; a croissant is £5.95 if you just want to sit in the room. You're paying for the room: £24.50 is well over the price of a caff fry-up. Book, especially at weekends, though some tables are held back for walk-ins. There's a £15 a head fee if you don't turn up to a breakfast booking, and no dress code.

The Delaunay, run by the same group as The Wolseley, opened on Aldwych in 2011 and is styled on the grand cafés of Vienna. Breakfast is 7am to 11:30am on weekdays and 8am to 11:30am on Saturday. The English is £24.50, the smoked haddock kedgeree is also £24.50, and the Gröstl, fried potatoes and onions with spinach and a fried egg, is £18.50. A 15% service charge is added. The catch: there's no breakfast on Sundays. It's step-free with accessible toilets, and six minutes from Temple, a little further from Covent Garden or Holborn.

Holborn Dining Room is the restaurant of the Rosewood London hotel, off High Holborn, and non-guests can book breakfast on SevenRooms. It opens at 7am every day. The English Breakfast is £32, with Clarence Court eggs, treacle-cured bacon, Cumberland sausage, hash brown and black pudding, and 15% service goes on top, so this is a splurge. I'd order the Holborn Breakfast Bap (£18) instead: a sausage patty, fried egg, bacon and smoked cheddar with brown sauce. Breakfast stops at 11am, or 11:30am on Sundays. Holborn station is two minutes away, which makes it an easy start before the British Museum.

Berners Tavern is Jason Atherton's restaurant in The London EDITION hotel, set in a restored historic building in Fitzrovia, and it takes public breakfast bookings from 7am every day. The Full English is £29, and the black truffle scrambled eggs on brioche (£22) are the dish that feels most like the room. 13.5% service is added. Breakfast ends at 10:30am on weekdays and 11am at weekends, earlier than most, and the dress code is smart casual. Book on OpenTable or by phone. Tottenham Court Road is six minutes' walk, Oxford Circus about seven.

The Goring has been run by the same family since it opened in 1910, and its Dining Room, which holds a Michelin star, welcomes non-residents. It's the most expensive breakfast here: the Goring Breakfast is £39, but it includes fresh juice, tea or coffee and a basket of breads and pastries alongside eggs, bacon, Huntsman sausage, mushroom, tomato and black pudding. Service at 15% is optional. It's also the most formal: no sportswear, trainers, shorts or ripped jeans, and jackets encouraged. Breakfast runs 7am to 10am on weekdays and 7:30am to 10:30am at weekends, three minutes from Victoria station, so it suits a Buckingham Palace morning.

Rolls, bagels and an early pint. Dishoom's signature breakfast is the bacon naan roll: smoked streaky bacon from Ramsay of Carluke, cured the Ayrshire way and wrapped in a naan, for £11.70. The King's Cross branch is in a restored Victorian railway goods shed eight minutes from the station, which makes it my pick before a train from King's Cross or St Pancras. Breakfast runs 8am to 11:45am on weekdays and 9am to 11:45am at weekends. The Big Bombay (£17.70) is the full breakfast, with akuri (Parsi-style spiced scrambled eggs), bacon, sausages, masala beans and buttered buns, and the house chai is £4.90. At breakfast you can usually walk in, and you can book anyway. The downside is price: £11.70 is a lot for a sandwich, and 12.5% service goes on top. It's step-free with a lift.

Beigel Bake on Brick Lane is open 24 hours, so it's there however early (or late) you are. It's a Jewish bakery counter, and the order is a hot salt beef beigel with mustard and gherkins; the online shop lists it at £8.50, and the bakery says the counter is cheaper than online. There's almost nowhere to sit, so eat it walking. The queue is at its worst late at night and at weekends, and early morning is when it's quietest. Shoreditch High Street station, on the Overground (London's suburban rail network, here the Windrush line), is four minutes away.

The Fox & Anchor is a Young's pub on Charterhouse Street, on the edge of Smithfield Market, and it serves breakfast from 7am on weekdays. Its City Breakfast is the biggest plate here: two eggs, bacon, sausages, rump steak, lamb kidney and liver, black pudding, beans and fried bread, with a pint of Guinness included, for £30. That's the novelty order. The Fox's Breakfast, without the steak, offal or beer, is £18, and the breakfast butty is £10. Weekend breakfast starts at 8:30am, it stops at noon every day, and tables of four or more pay a 12.5% service charge. Barbican station is three minutes away.

The Breakfast Club started on D'Arblay Street in Soho in August 2005, and the original yellow café is still the one to go to. It serves breakfast all day from 7:30am, every day. The Full Monty is its fry-up (bacon, sausage, black pudding, potatoes, hash brown, beans, tomatoes, egg and toast), and the All American, pancakes with bacon, sausage and eggs, is the dish it made its name with. The online menu doesn't list main-dish prices; a flat white is £4.25 and 12.5% service is added. It's busy and cramped by mid-morning at weekends, so book on SevenRooms. Oxford Circus is six minutes away.