The Cornerstone Cafe

I was in the Mill Road area on the weekend, and saw a sign here saying "Best Breakfast in Mill Road - Butchers sausages". I was keen to try it out.

Cornerstone

http://www.papworthtrust.org.uk/locations/cornerstone-cafe
This is a cafe attached to St Phillips Church. Decor wise it's fairly basic, it has a community feel, with the kitchen in view, newspapers to read and rooms for hire with community stuff going on. But we came for breakfast!

Good value menu

The menu seems very reasonable. I went for a SET3 with added saute potatoes. I let my companion ride a small wave of order confusion. This is a pretty large breakfast for £5.75. We got black coffees.

Coffee was average

 The food came very quickly. I was hoping for good things.

The picture doesn't do the breakfast justice

There were many plus points about this breakfast. Many. A few negatives, the first being presentation - but it's a substance-over-style type affair. A bigger plate may have helped. Another issue was the bean contamination - but that's my mistake, I shouldn't have ordered them.
For the positives - It was piping hot - straight from the kitchen! The potatoes were really good. The sausage was a masterpiece, really well flavoured. Bacon was fine, and mushrooms were good. Tomato was present, but had become rather squashed and engulfed by the other ingredients. The eggs were also good, even though my eggs had suffered some "spatula rage". Seefud's plate was a bit better presented

Breakfast with black pudding

The toast was pre-buttered -  not to my liking. I prefer a dry crumb, and brown if possible, but still, now I know, I'll ask next time.

Pre-buttered toast

There will be a next time - There's an option to select breafast items for 75p - so I'll probably make my own options for a well valued tasty breakfast.

• Food     4
• Value    4.5
• Service  3
• Ambience 3
• Coffee   3

Afternoon Tease

http://afternoontease.co.uk/

I know what you're thinking: what do afternoons have to do with breakfast? Or teasing, or teas, for that matter? Well it turns out that this Cambridge foodie hotspot also does breakfasts, of a sort:

French Toast, bacon, and banana 

This cost £6.50 (not including beverages, more of which later). I'm not a French toast expert - in fact I was previously under the impression I hated the stuff - but this was very nice. Soft brioche, slight crust, maple syrup, the bacon was streaky and good quality. Not crunchy but that was OK and the taste meshed well with everything else (except possibly the banana, but then I was too scared to try that combo).

Now, coffee. Afternoon Tease is one of these gourmet places that probably have freshly roasted posh beans but insist on serving it small and tepid. Possibly this preserves delicacy of flavour, probably it matters less for espresso or milky drinks, but in any event my Americano was a gutless disappointment. Breakfast coffee should be punchy, substantial and hot; this failed on all counts. It cost £2.20.

Lastly, a word on ambience. You will be cocooned in posh hipster moronising. The seating is cramped so there's no escape. Either this will matter to you or it won't. This isn't a criticism of the staff who seem very pleasant.

Overall a good alternative to a traditional English, if you can find somewhere nice to sit and have enough company to insulate.

• Food     4
• Value    3
• Service  4
• Ambience 2
• Coffee   2 (but 4 if you choose wisely!)

Patisserie Valerie

https://www.patisserie-valerie.co.uk

Known as a purveyor of fine cakes and gateaux, they also do a full English breakfast. For £7.95 it's the classic mushroom, sausage, bacon, tomato, egg, beans combination. Eggs only poached or scrambled though.

Troby
"forgettable"
On arrival, the dining area appears a bit more 'low rent' than the exterior, with stuck down tables (I think), like a Wimpy Burger place, but brown decor. We were served by an excellent waitress, who took our drink orders, and took my various fussy requests in her stride. Coffee was pretty good.

Double expresso, hot water on the side

I chose the full English with scrambled egg, beans on the side. The breakfast arrived in reasonable time, but soon the disappointment set in - as feared, rubbery eggs! like a dry cloud, no clumping, hard to get onto a fork. Also, some heat issues - a cold plate means that after a short time you're left with tepid mushrooms etc. Overall the flavours weren't bad, nice enough bacon, warm crumby toast. The quantity was good. I had issues with the mushrooms, teeny tiny fungi that felt like they'd been boiled rather than fried. The sausage was fine, but forgettable.

Unfried breakfast. Good toast.

There's a possibility that nothing here is fried (suggested by the no fried egg option). Now, that's not a crime in itself, but a lot of skill, timing and good ingredients are required if nothing has been near the frying pan. I think the whole breakfast fell afoul of that. Even the service let us down towards the end as our waitress became overstretched with the other tables. Overall - there are much better breakfasts out there for a tenner eg Cote

• Food         2.5
• Value        2
• Service      4
• Ambience     2.5
• Coffee       3.5

Seefud
""
Firstly, the service. It started off quite promising, as the waitress was attentive and took our orders well. She didn't push back when Troby started customising either. But the place was initially quiet and I began to wonder how she would cope if she was stretched. Not perfectly as it turns out, she lost focus just as the four of us were finishing and wanted to pay.

I'd grabbed a take-away doughnut a couple of times from Patisserie Valerie but never sat in to eat anything. It exudes a certain class (for a bun shop) from the outside, but inside the seating area was a bit of a disappointment, and there was no real atmosphere. The coffee was okay, if a little smooth and mild.

I had suspected the food would be poor the day before when I saw the online menu and noted the lack of a fried egg. It's usually a sign there's no frying at all going on, probably just an oven/grill and microwave. I had scrambled egg and lo and behold, they were over-microwaved, crumbly and tasteless. The bacon was dried with no hit caramelisation, and sausage and tomato were very average. The tiny mushrooms were a disappointment too. The beans were beans and the toast was toast. That's about the best I can think to say. Oh no, wait, I thought they got the relative proportions of ingredients about right and overall the portion was good. WHOOOHOOOOOO!

• Food     2
• Value    2.5
• Service  3.5
• Ambience 2.5
• Coffee   2.5

Cote Cambridge

http://www.cote-restaurants.co.uk/Cote_Restaurant_Cambridge.html

As far as dining in Cambridge goes, Côte is usually a safe pair of hands in many respects. You're generally not expecting to be blown away, but you're also not expecting to be let down. Like many of these chain places, that can see key kitchen and waiting staff turnover fairly regularly, it can suffer from inconsistency. "Life is like a box of chocolates..." etc. Would we pull a green triangle (Mmmm!) or a strawberry cream (eugh!)

Classic Cambridge window seat view

Seefud

GREEN TRIANGLE FOR THE WIN! Thank you Côte, it can be done!  An almost faultless breakfast experience!  Maybe... no, I have been suffering from sub-par breakfasts recently (cough... Bill's) but I don't think that's why I enjoyed this so much. I think it was genuinely a great breakfast. Maybe not 11/10 amazing in any one department, but just very good in all departments.

Firstly, it's a nice atmosphere and you can almost always get a window seat for breakfast. The service was spot on, a very professional waiter and service and delivery time was very acceptable. The menu is pretty good with the "Formule" offering being the stand out value choice. A Full English, choice of apple or orange juice, and choice of coffee for £9.50. The coffee was good and hot if unspectacular, the apple juice was pretty nice and iced. There was water bought to the table too, and life was good.

Côte has breakfast beverages pretty well covered!

Then it just got better when the food arrived.

There was a couple of rounds of nice wholemeal toast with butter in a dish go with it. Initial concern that the eggs were overdone was unfounded, they were just well basted but with runny yolk. The sausage done just how I like it, and a nice breakfast banger, porky and only a little herby. The tomato was lovely too, once I'd scraped off a slight excess of dry herbage. The only slight issues were the bacon was a bit old and rubbery, and I could have done with more mushrooms and the other half of the tomato. But very tasty overall, and not at all heavy with grease. I even had enough toast left over to have a couple of pieces with the good quality jam that was already on the table in a jar (nice touch). One happy boy!

I want to go back tomorrow!

• Food     4.5
• Value    4.5
• Service  4.5
• Ambience 4.5
• Coffee   4 

Troby
Hit the nail on the head!
We decided to go here as opposed to the greasier end of the scale today, and I'm glad we did. I've had a variety of different experiences at Cote, and today was one of the good ones. 
We got a great table by the window overseeing the hundreds of commuting cyclists - ambience is great here, with decent background music, and somehow a french feel, maybe a certain je ne sais quoi? Service was friendly and quick and our coffee soon arrived. 
There are a few options on the menu, I went for the "formule" which is full English with juice and a coffee included for £10. Slow service has been a bit of a bugbear recently, but the food came soon, while my coffee was still hot. The food was great. I went for scrambled eggs, fresh orange juice and brown toast, and there's also tomato 2 bacon, sausage, and mushrooms. All the ingredients were good, especially the sausage, which was a herby number, and the the bacon, which although was a bit overcooked had a nice smokey flavour. Another bonus was the toast, which was the seeded kind which gave good crumb. 
My only negatives were the small portion of mushrooms, and the scrambled egg was slightly rubbery.

Overall however, just what I wanted, a tasty and well valued breakfast served with panaché.

• Food      4
• Value     4
• Service   4.5
• Ambience  4.5
• Coffee    3.5

Agora at The Copper Kettle

http://thecopperkettle.weebly.com/
Another vintage Cambridge café with stunning views onto Kings College. But does the breakfast do it justice?

A pretty unique view from a window seat

Their version of a Full English

Seefud

The short answer is no, it doesn't. It's not a terrible breakfast by any means, but a location like this demands a higher quality breakfast, and a business this well established ought to be able to deliver. First though, the good parts. Service was professional if a little dour (is everyone a bit grumpy in Cambridge at 9am?). We were met promptly at the door and shown to a great table in the window. Our order was taken after just enough time to review the menu, which had nothing fancy on, but a few different options from the basic components. They were sufficiently well staffed that the coffee (strong but not that tasty) arrived promptly, and the breakfast followed soon after. Clearly the majority was precooked, but the toast and eggs were fresh. The tomato was probably the best thing on the plate for me, cooked to perfection.

Now for the not so good. No mushrooms! I didn't think it made much difference how you cooked a bottom-tier economy sausage, but it turns out you can overcook them. It was a good job the beans were in a dish as they were pretty soupy. But worse, the dish was right in the middle of the plate and pretty hot, so not a satisfying plate arrangement to tackle until it had cooled down enough to be handled. A similarly bottom-tier hash brown and a rasher of bacon (just one) were mediocre at best.

The ambience was pleasant and they seem to attract a fairly high quality clientele, but maybe it was a little too quiet for free conversation. Overall, could have been really nice, but was just a little disappointing. It wasn't expensive at ~£8 for breakfast and coffee, but still not brilliant value, even in such a good location.

• Food     2.5
• Value    3
• Service  4
• Ambience 4
• Coffee   3

A double shot Americano, both Troby and Seefud's standard coffee order

Troby
We were greeted by a bow tied efficient waiter, maybe all a bit over the top, but this is going to be one of the most popular Cambridge cafes, overlooking King's and all. I was impressed with the speed of service, but the whole plate was let down by two things. 1) the sausage, and 2) the shallow dish of bean soup. Now, I've been hoisted by my petard somewhat, as I'm fussy about bean contamination, but this rather large bowl in the middle of the plate reduced the angles of attack severely. The sausage was one of the worst yet in the breakfast quest. Not as scary as some, but the most tasteless.

The snag in question

The eggs were very good, and it's nice to have two. The tomato was also well cooked. Bacon was fine, but it didn't do enough to make up for the poor beans and sausage. The hash brown was forgettable. I wasn't offered the option of brown or white toast, but brown may have made this better. Coffee was fine but average. So, overall an agreeable enough place, kind of what you expect. The food was food, but not great food.

• Food      2.5  
• Value     3.5
• Service   4
• Ambience  4
• Coffee    3

Don Pasquale

http://donpasquale.co.uk/ [great website, love the game of 'Spot The Difference' on the front page]
A popular tourist spot in the middle of Cambridge, next to the market. A family run Italian restaurant that also serves a full English.

Pretty views from Don Pasquale

Full English

Troby
I wasn't sure what to expect here, but was very pleasantly surprised. Service was quick and efficient, and my double expresso with extra water was decent enough. Beans come as an 'add on' here, and I ordered the breakfast without beans having recently suffered heavy bean contamination. The food that arrived was great - crispy bacon, good sausage, the mushrooms were well cooked, and the centrepeice was large grilled tomato. This provided any juice that one may have missed without the beans, and in my book, a good tomato beats beans any day. This was a good breakfast, and even felt quite healthy with such a big tomato as a main ingredient. Pretty good value for just over £6 too.

• Food     4
• Value    4
• Service  4
• Ambience 4
• Coffee   3.5

A sprig of green adds to the presentation

Speaks a thousand words

Seefud

Having just sat out on the pavement in front of Don Pasquale’s for breakfast, I’m now firmly a supporter of Troby’s campaign for Cambridge to restrict lorries in the centre to night time deliveries, like they do in some cities in Europe. What would otherwise have been a pleasant al-fresco breakie was slightly marred by the diesel fumes and noise. Obviously we were on the noisy side of the terrace but there’s no natural sunlight there at that time in the morning and you get a bit of warmth and light reflected off the white buildings of Market Street. Anyway, onto the breakfast…

Not that they’re the same type of outfit at all, but after Carluccio’s and the crispy pancetta, it was in the back of my mind that Don Pasquale’s might feasibly go for some element of English-Italian fusion. Fortunately they don’t, the Full English is as English as you like. More English in fact than lots of other places I could mention that insist on serving hash browns. It started well before we’d even got our food, with beans being an option on the menu. I don’t mind beans, but they’re not an essential part of a Full English for me. Far better to forego the beans than mushrooms or tomato. And this place got the tomato pretty much spot on. Nice and big, hot all the way through but not over cooked and mushy; once cut up a bit and re-seasoned it was a highlight of the plate. And the shrooms were okay too, very small button mushrooms cooked just enough. The right amount of fresh toast was English white sliced for-the-win, not ciabatta or anything fancy. The bacon was decent English back bacon too, and cooked pretty well. The egg could have been a bit runnier, and I’m not sure how I feel about the sprinkling of dill but the sausage was a bit of a revelation. A decent quality sausage (English, yes) with three or four transverse slashes (probably applied mid-fry) increased the crispy edge to volume ratio in a very pleasing fashion.

Overall a quality plate of food and a nice enough cup of Americano, for around £8. Service was prompt and professional (no danger of food turning up before cutlery here, one of my personal bugbears). Not exactly over welcoming but I'd rather they were proficient and a bit brusque than obsequious and inept. No black pudding but I didn’t miss it today. Even though the food inevitably went cold (the plates could have been hotter for the terrace) I was still enjoying it to the last mouthful. I’ll be happy to go back there, but I might see if breakfast can be eaten in the upstairs dining room.

• Food     4.5
• Value    4
• Service  4
• Ambience 3.5
• Coffee   3.5

Pastries
This was actually my second breakfast of the day so comprised espresso + danish only. Which I have neglected to photograph. Espresso was good. Danish was warm and generous - though of the floppy rather than crispy variety. The location is good when it's not fearsomely busy, though it's a shame it doesn't catch the sun in the morning. The right sort of service - friendly but unfussy.

• Pastry   4
• Value    3.5
• Service  5
• Ambience 4
• Coffee   4

B.L.D's

https://plus.google.com/115891209603192001776/about?gl=uk&hl=en
An unpretentious Mill Road institution offering classic fry-up fayre at reasonable prices.

B.L.D's

Seefud
A decade ago, in my Mill Road days, this was the only place to go on a Sunday with a hangover (often followed by a beer in the Beaconsfield). It's been frying bacon and eggs daily for years and frankly, it smells like you would imagine. But your nostrils adjust quickly and once we'd ordered it didn't bother me. The menu was okay and highly customisable, so I added black pudding to the traditional breakfast. The coffee's arrived swiftly with cutlery (+1 service) and the food followed pretty quickly after that. The filter coffee I ordered came with milk that I hadn't ordered. It was nice though and I should have guessed milk would be the default in this place though.

Troby's double espresso with hot water on the side

When the food arrived, I wish I'd added mushrooms instead of the black pudding though as the pudding was rubbish. The sausages (2) were of the lowest possible quality as well (I'd like to think 10% meat, or at least of animal origin, but that might be being optimistic). The rest was fine though and plenty of it. Nice to have proper cheap thick sliced white bread and butter as an option to toast, and a couple of eggs is always appreciated even if they were a touch over done. Other than that, nothing spectacular but nothing too bad either. Cheap and cheerful.

Troby's traditional with buttered toast

• Food         3
• Value        4 
• Service      4
• Ambience     2
• Coffee       3

 
Troby
This is good value simple stuff - I had a few issues, one of which can be seen in the photo - bean contamination! Now, this is a contentious issue with fry up lovers, but I much prefer 'beans on the side'. My other issue was the pre-buttered toast. Had I been more with it, I could have easily avoided both these things by asking, so I can't complain. Not sure they would have accomodated brown toast mind you. The sausages however, were pretty bad, I guess I could have swapped off for more bacon. Anyway the service was good and friendly, the food was hot and fresh, and came quickly, and it's a great quantity of food you're getting for the £5:45, all well cooked.
A bonus was the coffee - a really good double expresso, with hot water on the side, hit the spot this morning, for the same price as the filter coffee.

• Food          3
• Value         5
• Service       4
• Ambience      2  
• Coffee        4

Pastries
I went veggie which meant 2 circular hash browns and a reasonable pile of mushrooms with 2 veggie sausages - of the carrot 'n' peas rather than linda mcartney variety. Contrasted favourably with the evil-looking meaty ones. Pretty good for a cooked veggie breakfast. Nice coffee. Matt beans. Rubbish bread. If you were getting this for a few quid less you'd be very happy, but then, we are in Cambridge.

• Food 3
• Value 3       
• Service 4
• Ambience 2
• Coffee 4

Urban Shed

http://www.theurbanshed.com
A 'retro' cafe decked out in upcycled/retro furniture, some of which is for sale. With an old record player and boxes of LPs you can create you own ambience. They serve 'breakfast-in-a-box' which is good value for around a fiver.

Retro stylings

Breakfast-in-a-box!

Troby
I put on some Sinatra to calm things down after an altercation with a grumpy OAP on the pavement. I really like this cafe - It's quirky, but not annoying. They cook their own pasties, sausage rolls etc, and the coffee here is good. This is style, with substance.
The sausage was tasty, and the bacon was to my liking. The muffin was a bit crusty, but this often happens to me as I won't have butter. I'm also a fan of beans on the side. I'd give an overall 4/5 rating.

Seefud
People and places trying to be cool normally wind me up. But this place gets away with it somehow. Maybe it's because of the dirty bbq pork sausage roll/pasty hybrid I had the first time. Just my sort of food filth.

Today though, we sampled the breakfast-in-a-box. The sausage was perfect, the beans in a pot were good and the shrooms were good, if only just cooked. But the bacon, which probably started off life quite nice, was leathery and the muffin/egg combo, good in theory, was totally overcooked. The fact that it's served in a box, with a balsa wood knife and fork only served to highlight the problem when I broke my fork trying to cut the muffin, and almost went through the bottom of the box trying to saw through my bacon.

The chilled service and chat, the coffee, the music, the airport/airliner seats and the hostile grannies outside all contribute to making this a place I'll definitely return to. But I'll probably stick to the pasty-rolls more than the breakfast-in-a-box. 

Food          3 (breakfast-in-a-box) 4 (dirty pasty-rolls)
Value         4 
Service      5
Ambience 5
Coffee       5

Michaelhouse Café

http://www.michaelhousecafe.co.uk/
A quintessential Cambridge location and not a bad breakfast. Between 9 and 10am Trinity Street is a constant procession of bikes and vans. But underneath St Michael's Church in the sunshine can't be a completely bad location for a Friday fry-up. Especially with a 2-4-1 offer on!

The view back down Trinity Street

Scrambled eggs on toast w shrooms, bacon and sausage

Seefud

+ Very nice location despite the busy road. Great mushrooms, sausage and scrambled eggs. Nice coffee too.

- The bacon was beyond over cooked, the toast wasn't fresh either. No tomato or beans left it looking pretty monotone and by the end it felt a touch greasy and heavy. Fairly surly service though and the food arrived before the cutlery (cardinal sin!). Not sure if it was the waitress or Troby to blame though to be fair....
Food          4
Value         4 (will be 3 if the 2-4-1 offer ends)
Service      2
Ambience 4
Coffee       4

Troby
It was just the sort of thing I was looking for, but in the end - too dry! I love my toast crumby, and I like my bacon well crisped, I also like my sausage cut transverally and cooked again. However without a tomato, or beans or something, this was positively arid! The breakfast we ordered comes with extra toast, so overall rather bread heavy (I like my toast unbuttered, so I emerged parched, but Sefud liking buttered, came out over greased) . Service was not prompt, and it would have been nice to have been offered sauce/mustard/cutlery but the location is brilliant and the overall quality of food also good.
I agree with Sefud's scores.

Gros Franck

legrosfranck.com
A good value basic breakfast - 2 eggs, bacon and brown toast, plus coffee and orange juice for less that £6! This really hit the spot this morning. The full English proved to be quite large, and the scrambled egg on toast option looked a little anemic.

A lovely geranium ambiance, with a touch of Hills Road

Seefud's Full English

Seefud

+ Another buffet style with fresh eggs and toast. Nice coffee. Food pretty hard to fault, but the eggs had uncooked white. What is it with hashbrowns in this city? And where's the black pudding?
- Weird pricing strategy. Not cheap for the full monty.

• Food          4
• Value         3
• Service      3
• Ambience 3
• Coffee       4

Troby
Value was good for 2 egg, bacon, brown toast, coffee and juice.

• Food          3.5
• Value         5
• Service      3
• Ambience 3.5
• Coffee       4

Cafe Carringtons

http://www.cafecarringtons.com
Pre-cooked bacon, sausage, mushrooms and tomatoes greet you in this downstairs cafe. For a £5 you get to choose 6 breakfast items (including prebuttered toast!). £2.50 for ok bean to cup coffee.
Was impressed by the quick service, very nice sausage, decent thick bread toast, large bacon portion.
The atmosphere was a bit lacking, but overall, good value, and good breakfast.

Seefud

+ Buffet style with fresh eggs and toast. A good format for a quick breakfast. Nice sausage.

- Nothing really special enough to make up for the fact that you're eating breakfast in a basement.

• Food         3
• Value        4
• Service      2
• Ambience     2
• Coffee       2

Troby

• Food         3                
• Value        4      
• Service      3.5      
• Ambience     2  
• Coffee       3      

Welcome

Welcome to Cambridge Breakfasts.

We review cooked breakfasts available in Cambridge.

Please let us know of any great places for a Full English breakfast in Cambridge, and we'll review it.