Troubadour
Above: Troubadour
Encouraged by our positive experiences at Big Easy, we recently also revisited Troubadour in Old Brompton Road. Perhaps best known as a music venue – Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan both played here in the sixties – this café-cum-club is actually open all day. Indeed, locals might try and keep this secret to themselves, but the place serves some of the best breakfast in West London.
In keeping with the bohemian coffee house decor, which sees worn wood combine with countless knickknacks, varying from a curious tea pot collection to old musical instruments, it’s a rustic, relaxed affair, with full-size jars
of jam, marmalade and Marmite scattered about the tables family-style. The `full house’ offers two eggs, sausage, bacon, tomato and toast, but there’s also healthy things like porridge and banana, fresh fruit with Greek yoghurt, honey and toast, or boiled egg and soldiers. But we find it hard to resist the trusted bacon buttie, washed down with a nice cup of tea, which (again in keeping with the deçor) is here sold by the pot.
Eggs Benedict are strangely left off the breakfast menu but do pop up in the straightforward lunch and dinner offering, which also includes omelettes, burgers and pasta.
The best choice here is usually the hefty (both in terms of price and size) T-bone steak served with proper chunky chips. Just as you’d expect, there are indulgent sweets like apple crumble, banoffi pie and sticky toffee pud, to finish.
At this time of year, Troubadour’s trump card is its tucked-away back garden, where you can wash down sharing plates of crudités, pitta bread and dips with bottles of chilled rosé. If you’re one of the in-the-know who count this among their favourite summer pastimes, we can only apologise for letting the cat out of the bag.