The Wolseley Breakfast – Saturday 23rd Nov 2013*** by Beau Kim

Food ordered: Croque Madame & Mixed Basket

Drink ordered: Mozart

Ambience: Calm, Casual, No music

Service: Slightly slow, but fair nevertheless

Paid: £18.50

The Croque Madame (basically a Croque Monsieur - a cheese & ham toastie with a fried egg on top) came with two grilled half tomatoes. 

The bread bit was crusty and the cheese & ham tasted good.  The fried egg was a nice compliment though the price difference between the Croque Monsieur (£7.25) and Croque Madame (£9) meant that the fried egg alone was charged at £1.75 which I thought wasn’t that fair though that didn’t stop me from having it nevertheless.

The mixed basket came with 6 mini pastries – croissant, almond croissant, pain au chocolat, Danish, amandine pain sucre au beurre normand, cannele bordelaise.  I thought all the pastries weren’t that bad but it would have been tasty if they were slightly warm at least. They did come cold.  They were definitely mini mini, i.e. it was bite size basically so I didn’t really think it was that value for money.

I ordered the “Mozart” for my coffee – which was a long espresso with hot milk mixed with hazelnut liqueur and cream and almond flakes on top. Although I thought it was very fancy for a coffee and the hazelnut liqueur was a nice twist, overall, it was too sweet and not hot enough.  I’m guessing it was kept at a certain temperature for the cream to stay solid, I don’t think I’ll order it again. Would appreciate to read a review on the “Wolseley Imperial” coffee.

The service was slightly slow.  Though they were, in my view, as attentive as possible.  The guy serving us was unimpressed that I asked him take a group photo of us which I found off putting.  But nevertheless, tap water was served without us noticing and food came in good time.

The ambience was surprisingly casual.  I thought it would be full of yummy mummies or posh tots but found that the mood was much more casual.  

Overall, if I were to ask for any improvements, I would say that there should be some sort of soothing music, classical maybe, to sweeten the mood.  Maybe the guy serving us could smile a bit more.  It would have been nice if the toastie was slightly bigger and the coffee to be hotter.  I give 3 stars out of 5, meaning I would go again, but possibly next year.