Gone are the days of boring continental breakfasts. Instead, we're saying "good morning" with dumplings, prosciutto with sliced melon, and airy eggs Benedict at some of the best breakfasts our editors have eaten at hotels around the world.
Thompson Playa del Carmen,
Mexico
© Photo by Alex Grossman
Its
rooftop restaurant, Cinco, has a Yucatán-inspired menu, ocean views, and a pool
literally steps from your table. Buttermilk pancakes are served with coconut
crème fraîche, a drizzle of ginger-hibiscus jam, and a side of maple syrup.
Chilaquiles come with ultracrispy tortillas and eggs from a local farm. Order
them divorciados—doused half with salsa verde and half with red-chile sauce.
Offbeat house-made jams like spearmint-watermelon and roasted pineapple with
clove kick the bread basket up a notch. For a little extra heat on your eggs,
ask for charred-habanero salsa. The juice blend pictured has cucumber,
pineapple, and chaya, an indigenous leafy green that’s packed with more iron
than spinach. – Rebecca Misner
Baccarat Hotel New
York
© Photo by Oddur Thorisson
With
its pleated silk walls, plush ecru chairs, red roses, and of course crystal
chandeliers and candelabras, the Baccarat Hotel’s Grand Salon will get you in
the mood for a decadent breakfast. You wouldn’t be disappointed by blowing your
carb allotment on the croissants here, but the off-menu ricotta
pancakes—ethereally fluffy with butter-crisped edges, dusted with powdered
sugar and served with maple syrup and a quenelle of butter—is the order to
beat. Counteract any trace of guilt with a green juice that makes no gesture to
sweetness and bites with parsley and celery. And someone should get the
custardy canelé, to be washed down with a strong espresso as the sunlight
filtering through the beveled-glass windows scatters rainbows across your
table. – Rachel Khong
Brae, Victoria
© Photo by Sharyn Cairns
When
chef Dan Hunter opened six suites next to his cultish restaurant this year, he
kept “brekkie” simple, looking to Brae's 30-acre farm for menu inspiration.
It’s not an Aussie breakfast without fruit—or jams and honey to mix with the
muesli. Brae’s are made with plums and berries from its orchards, or
hand-sourced from its own beehive. The house-made sourdough takes days to make:
The dough is left out overnight, then cold-fermented for 22 hours before being
baked in an outdoor wood-fired oven. Chef Dan replaces bacon with house-cured
charcuterie from free-range pigs raised at Victoria’s famous Greenvale Farm.
Le Bristol Paris
© Photo by Matt Hranek
The
signature breakfast at Epicure—the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant—is a
case study in old-world decadence. Chef Éric Fréchon, who’s been here since
1999, will start your day with Parma ham and burrata, smoked salmon and blini,
seasonal fruit with a healthy side of fromage blanc, and a soft-boiled egg
topped with Sologne caviar, crème fraîche, and an edible 23-karat-gold leaf.
It’s all served on hand-painted Limoges porcelain and accompanied by Champagne.
The somm pairs a different vintage every month—in December, it’s Dom Pérignon
2006. Which might make you that much freer with your credit card while
strolling along the rue St-Honoré. –Andrea Whittle
Babylonstoren, South
Africa
© Photo by David Crookes
At
Babel, the hotel’s cowshed-turned-restaurant, the question “What’s for
breakfast?” is best answered by taking a look at the eight-acre garden. Your
double-cream yogurt might come loaded with guava and cape gooseberries; nut,
fennel, and curry powder granola; and a spoonful of blue gum honey from on-site
hives. Top the wood-fired country loaf—made with wheat from the farm—with heaps
of salty Serrano-style ham and Gorgonzola (or just a slab of hand-churned
butter). And if you had a glass too many of the Babel red the night before, a
shot of ginger in your fresh-pressed beetroot and blood orange juice should do
the trick. – Sarah Khan
Aman Tokyo, Japan
© Photo by Koji Hanabuchi
The
Japanese breakfast is a microcosm of the culture itself. Here, a balance of
texture, color, and flavor is executed with beautiful precision. This rolled
Tamagoyaki is tangier than the eggs we’re used to: It’s served with grated
radish as well as pickled vegetables and ginger beef. Marinated eggplant,
shishito peppers, taro, and carrot are eaten separately from the rice and fish.
You’ll get either steamed rice or congee rice (Japan’s oatmeal), pepped up with
pickled plum (next to the fruit). The salmon is delivered from Tokyo’s famous
Tsukiji fish market, then lightly baked and served with dried seaweed.
Chiltern Firehouse,
London
© Photo by Nicole Franzen
The
impossibly sceney Marylebone restaurant draws all the celebs—Cara Delevingne,
Marina Abramović, even David Cameron—and persistent paparazzi after dark. But
in the quiet morning hours, it’s a cozy, calm retreat in the city’s most
happening neighborhood. With a healthy slug of pure vanilla, the vanilla
porridge here borders on dessert. And the Anglo-fied version of eggs Benedict
is made with eggs from free-range Burford Brown hens (a heritage English breed)
and maple-cured ham by Aubrey Allen, Suffolk’s finest butcher.
Upper House, Hong
Kong
© Photo by Amanda Kho
Skip
the eggs and toast and order Café Gray Deluxe’s “Upper East Breakfast.” It
includes all the staples of a classic Chinese morning spread—with umami to
spare. Sample the insanely delicate (and addictive) char siu bao, a super-light
and fluffy steamed flour bun stuffed with sweet, slow-roasted pork tenderloin.
Add on a side of congee—think of this rice porridge with corn and crabmeat as
an Asian version of chicken soup. This one comes topped with traditional
garnishes—chopped cilantro and slivers of green onion and ginger—and a side of
roasted peanuts. And you can't forget the dumplings. Here you get two kinds: a
minced pork and shrimp siu mai and the plumper shrimp ha gau (in the white
pleated wrapper).
Hotel d’Angleterre,
Copenhagen
© Photo by Nicole Franzen
The
260-year-old grande dame does a mean Danish morgenmad of fish, cured meats, and
bread, served with views of King’s New Square. Try this: If it swims, it could
make it onto a Danish breakfast plate. The stars offered here are fjord-sourced
shrimp, hay-smoked salmon, and pungent house-pickled herring. The croissants
are made daily, but it’s the tebirkes—a layered pastry coated in poppy seeds
and filled with a sugar-marzipan paste—and spandauer, or, as we know it,
Danish, that stay with you.
Hôtel du Palais,
Biarritz
© Photo by Matt Hranek
When
Condé Nast Traveler creative director Yolanda Edwards came back from French
Basque Country, she raved about the breakfast at the Du Palais—specifically the
seasonal gem lettuces and piment d’espelette, that smoky pepper which makes
everything, including the buffet’s perfectly soft scrambled eggs, taste better.
Savor it, along with house-baked brioche, cured meats, and fruit tarts, in the
dining room late into the morning—meaning you may just skip lunch.
Park Hyatt Saigon,
Vietnam
© Photo by Jason Lang
Our
favorite hotel in Ho Chi Minh City—fresh off a major redo—happens to serve one
of the city’s top breakfasts. The Vietnamese knock back their beloved pho the
way the Italians do espresso: swiftly, routinely, and often in the morning. Us?
We like to linger over the fragrant, herb-scattered noodle soup at the Park
Hyatt Saigon, where a squad of chefs set to work on that beefy, cardamom-y
broth hours before the sun—and hotel guests—rise. One hearty bowl will keep you
fueled for a day of exploring, all the more so when paired with a Vietnamese
coffee, a strong brew poured over sweet condensed milk.
Otahuna Lodge, New
Zealand
© Photo by Alan Jensen
There’s
no menu at this elegant South Island mansion. Instead, the chefs will make you
whatever you feel like that morning—with whatever’s fresh from the garden. The
kitchen often pairs house-cured coppa and prosciutto with sliced melon from the
orchard, drizzled with vanilla bean–infused olive oil and 20-year-old balsamic.
On top of still-warm sourdough loaves, expect banana bread, raspberry muffins,
and date scones, all baked in-house.
Written by CNT
Editors