13 Jan 2026
‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ – James Cameron visits the St Albans stalwart…
I wasn’t expecting much from my visit to the Breakfast Club. Spending the day in detention with a jock, a princess, a rebel and an outsider didn’t sound like fun but actually we ended up bonding and having a lovely time. No, wait, actually I was at the St Albans café which specialises in breakfast items with my family, sorry about the confusion.
The Breakfast Club really is a delightful and welcoming place. The staff are absolutely lovely, and the decor was a calming teal. It was also suitably dressed up in festive fripperies. There was something of a height differential between the sofa and chairs at the table we were sitting at, which made it feel like our companions were a tribunal sitting in judgement of us.
We visited in the between days of Christmas, and it was suitably quiet as most right thinking people were giving themselves a few days off eating. Unfortunately as regular readers will know this meant we fell foul of ‘Cameron’s Inverse Law of Service’, whereby the emptier a restaurant is the slower the service. We were a table of eight, which might have contributed to matters, but whilst hot drinks arrived relatively quickly, the fresh apple juices did not make an appearance until after some of the meals had been delivered.
The pleasant waiting staff were suitably apologetic, and offered us free drinks to make up for it, but it would have been a bit weird to take them up on this as we had just received drinks. It was very good apple juice as well, tasting very definitely of apples in a way most juices fail to. Iced tea was also a highlight, even better than Lipton’s. I wasn’t entirely sure about my Bombay Masala Chai, though, which was thick but quite bitter.
The delays in service unfortunately continued with the food. As referenced above some dishes arrived in reasonably good time (before the juice), but these had been consumed by the time the final meals arrived. This led to some rather hungry people being forced to watch as others consumed their food, but as none of these people were me there was no real harm done.
As you would expect they did well with the breakfast classics. Pancakes came in an appealing stack with fresh fruit and not quite enough syrup. Crazy Eggs Benedict had properly crispy bacon that repelled all but the most determined knife strokes, though it wasn’t entirely clear what made the eggs so crazy (maybe they were impatient).
The Full English had everything present and correct, with the surprising star of the show being the diced potatoes which were crisp and golden. Why everyone persists with cooked tomatoes is beyond me though. They always taste bland and bring a sogginess to proceedings, and it would not convince anyone but the most self-deluded that it makes the dish at all healthy.
I decided to go for one of the less usual items on the extensive menu, the Breakfast Naan. As might be deduced this was a number of breakfast items wrapped within a naan bread, and the contents were pretty good, drenched as they were with a creamy and spicy sauce.
My issue was with the naan bread itself. Firstly, I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t a naan, more like a Mediterranean flatbread. Secondly, it wasn’t very interesting. A great naan bread is a thing of beauty, with spices and butter and soft pillowy dough. This one pretty much just tasted of bread, which is an issue if you are basing the whole dish around (or inside) it.
As I say, it was a prodigious menu, and in these circumstances if your dish is disappointing you sort of feel it’s your own fault for choosing poorly.
As well as classic breakfasts, pancakes, French toast, porridge and 6 (6!) different avocado dishes there are also a few sections more suited for lunches. These include wraps, such as a very fine and flavoursome Chicken Shwarma, which came with a generous portion of crispy and crunchy chips.
There were also a number of bowls, including the vegan Buddha Bowl. This featured several great ingredients including, surprisingly for a dish that was specified as vegan, some unlisted halloumi. As this was on top, though, it was easily removed and meant I got some bonus halloumi. In the more traditionally vegan camp the tofu was slightly bland but this was counter-acted by the very flavoursome rice. Stars of the show were the falafel, very sweet and soft, and overall the dish was very well balanced.
Finally, there was the long-awaited final dish, the Qatari bowl. This featured Chicken Shawarma again, with eggs, chickpeas, rice and other goodies. It was a very generous portion, but it lacked an overall sense of purpose or stand-out hero ingredient.
Generally, the food was refreshingly cheap, but the drinks were surprisingly expensive. In fact a smoothie or juice could cost you almost as much as a wrap and chips, but for eight diners the total bill was less than 20 pounds per head which you’d be hard pressed to find in many other places.
I think it’s fair to say that the Breakfast Club were not on top of their game during our visit, possibly due to the time of year, and on previous occasions I’ve had far fewer problems. It is still a very welcoming and good value establishment, and possibly by focussing on a smaller range of items they could ensure that they absolutely nail all of them.
