BACK LIST
Mon—Sat from 10am approx. The best bacon rolls in town. and that's official.
I Equi‘s Coffee House 449 Sauchiehall Street 332 4537. Mon—Sat
10am—1 1pm approx. The comfort blanket of the catering world. Lineup the hot milky drinksand the bacon and eggs and spend the day here.
I Fazzi Brothers 67 ('ambridge Street 332 09-11 Mon~Sat 10am~6pm. Their espresso bar is just the place to kick-start your body of a cold tnorning. Try the foccaccia for long-lasting sustenance. I Grosvenor Cafe 33 Ashton Lane 339 18-18. Mon—Fri 9am—7pm; Sat 9am-6pm. Rolls wrapped round bacon. sausage. eggsctaL
I Joe‘s Garage 52 Bank Street 33‘) 5407. Mon—Sat noon—midnight; Sun 12.30pm—2.30pm. The full works to tempt you out of bed. Pancakes and maple syrup to follow.
I King's Cafe 71 [{lmbank Street 332 0898 Mon—- Sun 10am—midnight approx. ()ld reliable which has fuelled generations of (ilasyvegians. Helpful and long-suffering staff. lfyou can eat it. they'll try it.
I Samovar Coffee Shop 1 13 (‘andleriggs 552 3903 Mon—Sun 10am—5pm approx. The world‘s biggest scones are served here.
EDINBURGH
I Cafe St Honore 34 Thistle St Lane. 226 221 1 . Mon—Sun 9am—5pm. (‘ool gallic cafe serving fresh.
DISARMAMENT AT DAWN
The man I had breakfastwith last
buttery. patisserie (which you can take-away too) and decent coffee. all day. Papers available. £1 .40 for coffee and an almond till’t.
I Le Cafe Noir Waverley Market. 556 1374. Mon—Sat 9am. Sun 11am. ('omfortable sofas. morning papers and croissants. but the music can be a bit obtrusive. £2.20 for coffee. croissant and orange juice.
I Bianco's l3 1 lope Street. 226 2047. Mon—Sat 9am. Papers. copious cafetiere coffee. and croissants. in the West 15nd. £1.40.
I Henderson’s Salad Table 9411anover Street. 225 2131. Mon—Sat 8am. Fruit salad and yoghurt. muesli. or just a croissant with your coffee (maybe even porridge ‘if we get snowed in‘). Papers. £1 .90for Fruit salad and yoghurt plus coffee.
I Vittoria 1 13 Brunswick Street. 556 6171. Mon—Sat 10am; Sun noon. Italian-(nay. (‘rolla-)run caff serving the usual permutations of bacon. eggs. black pudding. sausages. tomatoes. mushrooms etc. and proper Italian coffee. £2.50 for bacon. eggs. tomatoes and a cup of coffee.
I Nastiuks 155 Bruntsfield Place. 229 7054. Mon—Sat Sam~5pm. ('afe with cosmopolitan aspirations in the middle ofa delicatessen. Muesli. croissants. coffee and freshly-squeezed orange juice to consume whilst catching up on the news in French. Italian. German. Russian etc. (as well as in
linglish ). (‘offee and croissant £1.05.
I Acanthus 17 Waverley Bridge. 556 2358. Mon—Sat 8.30arn—-noon (approx): Sun 1 lam. Sit in the conservatory bit ofthis unusual British Rail-run cafe bar and let them railroad you into muesli. scrambled eggs. bacon. toast and marmalade or croissants. Several sorts of fruity patisserie and morning papers also available. Bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee £2. 10. I Bagguley‘s Coffee House and Emporium 2 Deanhaugh Street. Stockbridge. 332 1469. Mon—Sat 10am—4pm.
Home-made scones. filled rolls. filled and unfilled croissants. morning papers and magazines to sample with your caffeine fix in this bohemian basement. (‘offee and croissant £1.
I Sheraton Hotel 1 Festival Square. 2299131.
Mon- Sun 7- 10.30am. (‘ontinental breakfast £6.50. full Scottish breakfast £8.75 -- well. you might bump into someone famous (‘Keith Floyd slept here'). or at least rich enough to buy you a morning paper. (iood black pudding.
I Fruitmarket Gallery Cafe 29 Market Street. 225
series on the Pacific basin (‘Far-Flung
(7, ' yo I 777m
MOIRA NICOL 2383. Mon—Sat 10am- 5pm. Sun 1.30-5pm. .\'ow in the same imaginative hands as Negociants (see below). this cafe-in-a-gallery offers filter. cafetiere or espresso coffee. croissants. pain au chocolat and a variety of home baking for breakfast. They have also just started to do tapas(a variety of small savoury dishes w- in this case often Asian in influence -- eaten with bread) all dayevery day -— which might make an interesting brunch (with beer'.’). (‘offee and croissant 95p. tapas 95p portion. I City Art Centre Market
Street. 225 242-1. Mon—Sat 9. 15ant—-l. 15pm. (‘appucino coffee and croissants. hot scones and other home baking. served by Americans (for some reason). Theatrical murals to look at in the absence of papers. (‘offee and croissant 75p.
Sundays only
I Cafe Royal OysterBar 17;! “est Register Street. 556-1124. l2._‘sl12pnt. Set brunch of(\yait for it) Buck's l-iu. blueberry muffins. croissants. choice of main courses ~ including such things as steak. eggs Benedict and ‘omeletle Key largo‘ dessert and coffee. for £10. Service will be automatically added to the bill. but is in tact optional.
I City Cafe 19 Blair Street. 2200125. Noon-3pm. Set brunch of fruit juice. toast and marmalade. tea or coffee and a choice of main courses - eg chicken waldorf salad. bacon and eggs » for £3.95. Stylish surroundings and Sunday papers.
I Hegociants 45 47 [.othian Street. 2256313. 11am-3pm. Full Scottish breakfast of bacon. sausage. eggs. black pudding etc. for £2.75(not including coffee. 75p). Alternatively try one of their ‘Breakfasts ( really brunch) from three continents'r a choiceof fifteen or so things you never thought of eating in the morning. eg Mexican potatoes. kabli channa ntasala. prawn poori at about £2.30—£2.80. They also have croissants every morning (55p) from 10am.
“—
I . married, ‘to ward off women, and stop
Thursday was wearing a flicked-to-flop hand-painted silk bow tie, expensive hand-lasted shoes, and a flamboyant garment he described as ‘my snooker player's, no, my hustler's waistcoat’. This nonchalant dandyism of Keith Floyd‘s can only contribute to the problems he occasionally has with his female fans. I was in the enviable other-side-of-the-table position to talk about his two latest books, his life, food, fate, fame and tabloid journalism, among otherthings, as we both tucked into black pudding and scrambled eggs.
The Floyd phenomenon is changing gear. Floyd's next cookbook will be his fast. He has just brought out a tantalising autobiographical hors d'oeuvre of a book (‘Floyd In The Soup’) which describes his early struggles as a Bristol restaurateur in the Sixties, how he got into broadcasting, and what making a TV series with a producer as maverick as himself is like. This book
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is a taster of the sort of thing Floyd intends to write in the future.
He has three books and two television series in the oven. His ‘last ever’ cookbook, to be called ‘A Feast of Floyd‘, will contain his own favourite recipes. Afterthat, for autumn '89, he is being indulged by the BBC-who make a great deal of money out of his books- andgiven the cash for a TV
Floyd'), and then one on North America (Far-Fetched Floyd perhaps?) In these
he wants to change the emphasis, so that whereas he ‘used to arrive somewhere and go straight into a kitchen, then go out and explore a bit’ he's now planning to do more of a gastronomic documentary, with a short demonstration of local dishes at the end of each programme. Floyd In The Soup-style books will accompany each series, with lots of pictures, and one recipe from each region.
‘Everything just happens to me,’ Floyd says disarmingly. ‘I never like to ask for something, in case I'm refused’. But, one or two less welcome things have been happening to him recently.
Specifically, he feels his relative honeymoon with the tabloid press has come to an end, with some of them printing the sort of stories that ‘I don’t really care about, but they have upset some of my relatives'. He now wears a wedding ring although no longer
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myself getting in the tabloids’. His famously stunning girlfriend Zoe joins him on the dreaded promotional tours as often as she can, but has a job of her own as a property developer in Bristol, so wasn’t with us at breakfast. ‘She'll be joining me in Cork. It’s going to be quite hairy in Cork.’
But what would he like to be happening to him in a few years time? ‘l‘d like to spend three months in Provence every year, two in Devon’ (in his newly-acquired house near Totnes) ‘six weeks in Ireland . . . and I'd like to buy somewhere in Tuscany, I think. I
also keep being invited to Scotland to fish, which I'd love to have time to do.‘
He is intending to write about the earlier years of his life in Somerset, but ultimately he wants to write fiction. He’s already written a novel, some time ago, but his ex-wife has it at the moment, and ‘you know what ex-wives are like‘. Luckily I don’t, but I think she should give it back. I'd like to read it. (Lucy Bailey)
The List 11- 24 November 1988 63
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