The Providores and tapa room (27th March 2010)

There is no better way to kick-start a fab and chilled spring weekend in London with a quality brunch. Having had the Traditional English fry-up for countless times in my life, I was looking for something “different”. Don’t get me wrong, I still love that old greasy English breakfast but being in London, it would be a waste not to explore for a bit. The Providores and tapa room on Marylebone high street provides just that! However, as with all top quality places in London, grabbing a seat on a sunny Saturday brunch time can be a real task – it took us around 15 to be seated, and I was told that it’s considered to be fast.

The place is actually a wine bar in the evenings and can be a bit of a squeeze. The menu boasts a wide range of choices from some light greek yoghurt and scones to heavyweights such as grille sardines with salads. I went with two other friends and ordered “French toast stuffed with banana and pecans with grilled smoked streaky bacon and vanilla verjus syrup” (8/10), “Hot-smoked salmon, two poached eggs and spinach on walnut toast with yuzu hollandaise” (5/10) and “Grilled chorizo on creamy root vegetable gratin with a soft boiled egg, dukkah, green olive, guindilla chilli and oregano salsa” (8/10).

The food was simply heavenly! The combination of the sweet French toast stuffed with banana and pecans together with bacon and syrup sounded like a weird combo at the start, but the combination was delicious. I only had a little taste of it since it wasn’t my dish, but I wanted to finish the rest of the plate off. The chorizo I ordered was cooked to perfection and the whole dish worked very well in flavour and texture. The salmon with poached egg and spinach on toast was good, but I thought the dish was too mixed… seemed to me like a dish created to suit someone who couldn’t make up their mind between egg royale and egg Florentine. The restaurant/café also serves a hell of a good berry milkshake and fresh juice.

This place has since become my favourite brunch place in London and in another of my recent visit (on a weekend, much quieter), my girlfriend and I had the “Grilled sardines on roasted tomato bruschetta” (6/10) which was good and “Turkish eggs from changa restaurant in Istanbul - two poached eggs with whipped yoghurt and hot chilli butter” (8/10) which was FAB! Though the place tops my list for weekend brunch, quality food in a posh area does not come cheap… though given brunch is in theory two meals, I guess I would still starve a little and miss breakfast and come to this quality little place for its brunch. But be prepared to wait on a sunny weekend!