Most expensive breakfast ever

[Gwylan]

I had to meet up with someone at the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch. I had a couple of slices of toast, a croissant and a two cups of coffee and was stung for a bill of £19. My company pays so it doesn't hit me but even by West End standards that strikes me as a company taking the piss.

For that sort of money, I'd want to eat my breakfast to the sounds of a string quartet, be served Poilane bread lightly toasted on gold-flecked platters, accompanied by coffee picked from the highest trees by specially trained monkeys and end up by getting a blow-job from the waitress. Instead, I get two slices of badly toasted Mother's Pride, some decent-ish coffee served in what could pass as a works canteen by a dumpy Polish waitress with an attitude problem.

Has anyone ever experience a bigger rip-off than that?

 

[hans kraay fan club]

No. I think you win.

 

[Gwylan]

I hasten to add, I wasn't posting that in Dwayne way. I'm outraged at the cost - I'm more of a two quid down the local caff sort of man.

 

[tedebear]

Its ridiculous! Loads of Hotels do it - there is two charges for breakkie, a small sort of continental one and a full buffet one. Doesn't matter if you only have a piece of toast you'll get charged the full rate for the small one, if you have 1 piece of bacon you'll get the full whack for the hot/buffet breakfast - loads of hotels do it and its a rip-off!!

 

[clapham_gull]

A large beer in Venice in the centre, is always at a premium.

 

[NMH]

I can't compare, except one embarrassing trip to Burloigne on a boat loaded with English pigs hellbent on getting bladdered, then emptying them in the market square in broad daylight. I went humbly into a local cafe and ordered cappuccinos for myself and my girlfriend, and got charged £2.50 each cup.

On a much more recent breakfast, e.g. this morning, I went to a really nice restaurant called 'Goldings Barn' on the Beeding to Small Dole road, and two full, brilliant English slap-up meals with coffees and toast and fantastic clean (not loaded with grease) and tasty eggs/beans/toms/black pud/button-shrooms/bacon/sausage cost less than £12. The service was excellent, as was the setting (and, even the background music).

An excellent place to impress a date or a client.

 

[Gwylan]

Its ridiculous! Loads of Hotels do it - there is two charges for breakkie, a small sort of continental one and a full buffet one. Doesn't matter if you only have a piece of toast you'll get charged the full rate for the small one, if you have 1 piece of bacon you'll get the full whack for the hot/buffet breakfast - loads of hotels do it and its a rip-off!!

That's right, that was the case here. But they didn't have two charges: so it would have been the same if I'd one piece of toast or a West End equivalent of a gut-buster. A complete and utter rip-off.

I try to operate on the principle that my company's money is my money so I don't try to push the boat out when I'm on exes, but trying to find somewhere to eat at 8.00 in the morning in central London is bloody difficult unless you pay those sort of prices.

 

[tedebear]

That's right, that was the case here. But they didn't have two charges: so it would have been the same if I'd one piece of toast or a West End equivalent of a gut-buster. A complete and utter rip-off.

I try to operate on the principle that my company's money is my money so I don't try to push the boat out when I'm on exes, but trying to find somewhere to eat at 8.00 in the morning in central London is bloody difficult unless you pay those sort of prices.

Bloody daylight robbery!! Agreed!!

 

[Badger]

Our company had a day of presentations at the Cumberland and we managed to rack up a £9000 bar bill in the evening

 

[Bozza]

That's right, that was the case here. But they didn't have two charges: so it would have been the same if I'd one piece of toast or a West End equivalent of a gut-buster. A complete and utter rip-off.

For me, that changes everything.

If your £19 bought you an eat-as-much-as-I-like hot and cold breakfast affair then, given your location, I don't think £19 is that bad at all.

I've been at worse places than the Cumberland, London where the breakfast was more than that.

 

[dwayne]

£19's standard for 4*+ in the w.end.

I recently took the Mrs to the Wolseley, that came to about £70 for the 2 of us ... I was pretty shocked.

side note: Breakfast at an average hotel in Moscow was about £30!!!!!

 

[Gwylan]

For me, that changes everything.

If your £19 bought you an eat-as-much-as-I-like hot and cold breakfast affair then, given your location, I don't think £19 is that bad at all.

I've been at worse places than the Cumberland, London where the breakfast was more than that.

I disagree. Not everyone wants an eat-as-much-you-like breakfast; there should be some choice. At least between continental and full English, even if they can't stretch to a la carte.

If you popped into Starbucks or Costa for a coffee on your way to work and was told that it was £20 - but you could help yourself to anything from the sweet counter, would that still be a good deal?

 

[Badger]

If you popped into Starbucks or Costa for a coffee on your way to work and was told that it was £20 - but you could help yourself to anything from the sweet counter, would that still be a good deal?

That is a bad example, you can hardly call a coffee a meal. I see what you mean though, there should be an alternative for people who don't want much.

 

[Bozza]

I disagree. Not everyone wants an eat-as-much-you-like breakfast; there should be some choice. At least between continental and full English, even if they can't stretch to a la carte.

It changes everything, for me, because you didn't actually represent what you'd bought. If you'd bought those items, individually, then of course £19 looks steep. But you didn't - you'd actually paid £19 for the full on works, and didn't tell us that.

 

[The Wookiee]

The most expensive breakfast you can buy in Cumbria is on a Virgin train. If you have to get an early train down to London for a meeting, you have to pay £197 return. If you pay £297 first class, you get a “free” breakfast, meaning that the breakfast costs £100.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Its ridiculous! Loads of Hotels do it

Not all though.

Used to be lucky enough to have breakfast meetings (excuse to chat to my friends really) at the Hotel Du Vin in Tunbridge Wells.

Staff always nice and usually pretty. It was £12 for non-residents, but you got the full english with really good quality bacon and Speldhurst sausage. Perfect scrammbled eggs, mushroom etc etc. Plus you could help yourself to the cold buffet - which was extensive to say the least. Everything from fruit and yog to pastries and breads. Plus unlimited tea or coffee and no end to the amount of toast.

It really was a cracker. Not sure it's still as good. HdeV sold out to a larger group and a lot of the staff moved on, but while it lasted, it was top notch nosh.

 

[SNOOBS]

Airports are pretty expensive, not quite £19 but it was £3.00 for a currant bun thing

 

[Questions]

Wetherspoons tomorrow at Victoria........... 2.50 for a good un and 3.50 for a big un. Get in there.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I once had a 99p full English in Scunthorpe.

 

[Gwylan]

I once had a 99p full English in Scunthorpe.

And in Scunthorpe that probably included the blow-job.