English Breakfast

Here’s where you can find a traditional full English breakfast on English Breakfast Day

It’s English Breakfast Day on Monday 2nd December - the perfect day for you to enjoy a very English tradition. And if you’re in London’s Docklands or staying overnight at the traditional Docklands tavern, the Fox Connaught, you’re very welcome to join us for breakfast. We open at 7.30am every morning so there’s no excuse not to have breakfast with us!

The Connaught is legendary in the Docklands. It’s the perfect place to stay and fuel up for the day ahead, whether that involves sightseeing, work, or simply living life with your family and friends.

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What is the perfect full English breakfast?

The national institution that is a ‘fry up’ aka a full English includes fried eggs, back bacon, and sausage. But after that, the debates start. Toast or fried bread? Mushrooms, tomatoes, or baked beans (or all three)?!  Black pudding - yes or no? Hash browns? Chips? Bubble and Squeak?*

The answer will vary depending on who you talk to, and you may find other additions if you happen to be in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, or Cornwall. But a traditional English breakfast found in East London is likely to include eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, and hot buttery toast, served with either a mug of tea or coffee.

*we’re not referring to small furry rodents. Bubble and squeak is fried potatoes and cabbage, or other green leafy vegetables. A great way to use up leftovers from Sunday lunch or Saturday tea!

Tell me more about the full English breakfast

The tradition of breakfast dates back to the Middle Ages when people usually ate only two meals a day - breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was served late morning and consisted of just ale and bread, sometimes with added cheese or cold meat.

Between the 14th-18thCenturies, a more lavish breakfast was served by the nobility or gentry at social or ceremonial occasions such as weddings. The wedding mass had to take place before noon, so all weddings took place in the mornings and the first meal the new bride and groom ate together would be breakfast - the ‘wedding breakfast’. This is the name that we still use today.

The wealthy middle classes of merchants and industrialists that emerged during the Victorian times wanted to copy the landed gentry and so served breakfast with eggs and bacon, kidneys, tongue and fish such as kippers and kedgeree. As these newly rich folks had to work for their wealth, breakfast was served before they left the house. They also copied the gentry by reading newspapers at the breakfast table. Did you know that even today, the only time when it is considered socially acceptable to read at the table, is at breakfast?

By the Edwardian period at the beginning of the 20th Century, the full English breakfast as we know it today began to be served as standard in hotels, bed and breakfasts and on trains as the newly affluent middle classes began to want a full cooked English breakfast in the morning.

The tradition reached its peak in the early 1950s when roughly half of the British population began their day by eating an English breakfast, turning it into a working-class staple. This is when traditional cafes, known colloquially as 'greasy spoons', began to appear around the country.

Today, many Brits tend to eat a ‘full English’ only at the weekend or when staying at a hotel or B&B. But even during the working week, somewhere in every town and village, you will find a greasy spoon open for a fry up. Or a bacon butty or sausage and egg sandwich: the simpler forms of the full English breakfast. To meet today’s wider tastes, you may also find smashed avocado served with poached eggs on toast.

Are you hungry for traditional British food?

As you’ve probably guessed, we serve a delicious full English breakfast - including a vegetarian option - eggs, avocado, porridge, and various breakfast sandwiches at the Fox Connaught traditional tavern from7.30am every morning.

Our all day menu at the Fox Connaught is also packed full of British favourites from fish and chips, to sausage and mash, and steak and ale pie. You’ll also find new British delights such as curry, steaks, and burgers.

What could be more traditional than good, honest pub food in a traditional east London setting?

Only 15 minutes from the West End and 3 minutes from the ExCeL Centre, London’s Docklands is a great place to visit (and stay!). The Docklands are regenerating as more and more businesses and a technology-driven leisure district make our home their home; transforming the Docklands almost beyond recognition. This is where tradition meets the future of London.

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