I don’t know if breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I’m not a scientist. But I’m pretty confident that it’s the best meal of the day. Even when it’s for dinner, which is an oh-so-crazy way to mix up the suburban routine — scrambled eggs for dinner, Dad? You absolute madman, ha ha! — but also a surefire survival tactic while traveling. Jet lag is a ferocious enemy that must be met with full force in order to be vanquished. Quinoa salad ain’t gonna get the job done.
Enter the 24/7 hotel breakfast, an ethereal eating experience resulting from only the finest of hospitality. This is top-tier stuff. There are no doubt many underrated travel joys that the seasoned globetrotter comes to look forward to, but breakfast whenever you want it? It’s for some reason almost unheard of, which makes it all the more spectacular when you stumble upon a property that offers it.
All-day breakfast is every jet-lagged traveler’s dream. It’s bringing the diner straight to your swanky bedroom. It’s peak hotel life. Your robe is on, and time is nothing but a social construct, anyway. Why shouldn’t you be able to eat hash browns and poached eggs? It’s just eggs! We know you got ’em back there.
One of properties that does this best is the Rosewood São Paulo, an art-filled masterpiece of a luxury city hotel. In addition to offering breakfast 24 hours a day via room service, they have a dedicated restaurant, Le Jardin, that serves breakfast all day, all night. Maybe you’re thinking scrambled eggs with black truffle salsa. Or maybe it’s time for a Brazilian corn meal cake with guava compote, or, ooh, here we go, an out of this world açaí bowl. Yup, that’s the one.
“We don’t think breakfast should be confined to a specific time,” says executive chef Rachel Codreanschi. You’re speaking my language, Rachel. “The idea was to give guests the freedom to enjoy their favorite morning rituals whenever it feels right — whether that’s a buttery croissant at sunrise or a made-to-order omelet late at night.”
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Take it from me: these brilliant, unexpected little travel moments of zen can make your dayRachel, you are doing the lord’s work, somehow fitting for a hotel set within what was once a maternity hospital. Half a million babies were born on its grounds, and when you delivered me breakfast at 8:12 p.m., one weary adult man was born again.
Elsewhere, Bvlgari Hotels & Resorts made the idea of an always-on breakfast a permanent, brand-wide staple. For a luxe jewelry designer turned hotel group, what’s more stylish than that?
“We decided to offer 24-hour breakfast to cater to the diverse schedules and needs of our clientele,” says Silvio Ursini, Bvlgari Group executive vice president. “We aim to provide unparalleled flexibility, ensuring our guests can experience breakfast whenever they desire.”
There are currently nine Bvlgari properties around the world — Bvlgari Tokyo is my personal favorite, so far — with at least five more in the pipeline. Dig into breakfast whenever you please at all of them. Ursini notes that the core menu is consistent from one hotel to the next, such as the famed bread and pastries from Niko Romito, but that local specialties abound, too. In Japan, you can bank on that including a full Japanese breakfast set, for instance.
Bvlgari isn’t the only big-brained brand to offer the bounty of breakfast on demand across its entire portfolio. There’s also Octant Hotels, a lineup of boutique properties in Portugal. The concept behind the group is what it calls a “latitude of freedom,” and if there’s anything more freeing than being able to wake up whenever you damn well please and still have the breakfast you yearn for ready to go, I don’t know what it is.
There are eight Octant properties in Portugal, each outside of its major cities, and each unique to itself and its locale. The shared thread between them is the beauty of a 24/7 breakfast, with its complimentary continental spread offered around the clock via its À Terra restaurants.
In New York, breakfast can be had anywhere in the city at any time of the day. Even better than being the city that never sleeps is being the one that ensures whether you’re waking up at midnight or going to bed at 4 a.m., you’re covered with a hearty, handheld breakfast. Enter a bodega anywhere across the boroughs, and a bacon egg cheese is on standby waiting for you, regardless of the time of day.
For a new hotel looking to make a strong impression, throwing down the all-day breakfast gauntlet was a wise choice indeed. The Warren Street Hotel opened in early 2024 in Tribeca, showcasing the irresistible style and décor of designer Kit Kemp: vibrant, textured and perhaps a bit quirky, with thick, colorful fabrics and quilts, contrasting patterns and eclectic combinations, and immersive art displays across rooms and common spaces. Here, that includes a contemporary museum-grade entrance that extends from the lobby towards a semi-hidden parlor room home to a loaded honesty bar.
More irresistible is the room service menu, which doesn’t distinguish between meals you’re allowed to have at certain special times and not at other less-special ones. Is there a breakfast sandwich on that menu? You bet there’s a BEC on there, not to mention a bagel with smoked salmon and the fixings. But fittingly enough for the Firmdale Hotels group, which is split between London and New York, there’s an English breakfast, too. If it’s 10:30 p.m. and you just need yourself some black pudding and baked beans, have no fear.
It’s one of many traveler-friendly amenities that will have you craving a quick return to Warren Street. You can add touches such as a record player hidden away in a doll house hutch and a garment valet mannequin to get your fit just right to the list while you’re at it. Guests also receive access to the Nexus Club and its well-equipped fitness center a few blocks away.
Within the uber-exclusive world of Ritz-Carlton Reserve hotels, catering to the every whim of guests is what they’re all about. It should come as no surprise then that several do so by catering breakfast throughout the day and night.
That’s fortuitous for locations such as Mandapa, in Bali, or Phulay Bay, in Thailand, because when you’re heading there from the States you’re staring a solid 30-hour journey in the face. Maybe it’s 9:47 p.m., but you’re strolling into the Jampoon restaurant at Phulay Bay fresh off a feverish jet lag nap, and a loaded Thai breakfast is what’s on order. Or maybe an a la carte offering of moo ping pork skewers with sticky rice, or perhaps aloo paratha, is what you’re after. They got you on this.
Days have elapsed while you’ve been flying and waiting, and then waiting and flying some more, while shifting a dozen time zones along the way. Who knows when it is or where you are? What you do know is that you’re hungry. For breakfast. Because breakfast is the warm embrace of your daily eating schedule. All breakfast food is comfort food, if you’re doing it right. It’s food you actually want to eat. And you don’t stop wanting it because it’s one minute past 11 a.m.
All praise the hotels that have your back with a blissful breakfast spread just when you need it most — whenever the hell that might be.
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