The Best Hotel Breakfasts in the World, According to Our Editors
When you're traveling, there are a million reasons to stay in a hotel—the most obvious being a guaranteed place to lay that pretty little head of yours. But these days, when Airbnb and other alternative stays offer at the very least that same thing, it's important to take into account the wonderful amenities hotels have to offer on top of the bare necessities. Consider the hotel breakfast, for example. Writing generally, if you're staying in one of the best hotels in the world as our editors often do, you can count on some sort of solid-if-not-outright-sumptuous spread to see you out the door ahead of a day spent doing whatever it is you've traveled to do. While every meal is a privilege, we have some opinions about which breakfasts went above and beyond.
Below, Condé Nast Traveler editors look back on the favorite ways they've started their days while in a hotel's hands. These are the best hotel breakfasts in the world, according to us.
Titilaka, Lake Titicaca, Peru
Andean’s luxury hotels throughout Peru have always delivered on breakfast—I've also stayed at their spots in the Colca Canyon, Lima, and Arequipa, and it seems they’re sort of known for a blow-out morning spread—but Titilaka has been among my favorite breakfasts of all time. Maybe it’s the fact that the breakfast is served in a room with panoramic views of the lake you’re here to see, with sun streaming onto sheepskin-draped armchairs that are an easy transition from your bed. The food is just as impressive: there’s the usual abundance of piping hot pastries, fruit juices, sliced cheeses, and beautiful cold cuts, but all of it reflects the local surroundings. There’s always a trout moment, either cured like lox, or cubed into a tartare perfect on crunchy toast, with fish plucked from the shimmering lake right outside the floor-to-ceiling restaurant windows. The daily fruit medley showcases local produce like aguaymanto, and fresh herb teas are made with muña (Andean mint) and coca leaves. That’s not getting into the à la carte add-ons, with hearty egg dishes and ancient-grain pancakes, which will keep you full for boat excursions and hikes to archaeological sites… or just an hours’-long nap on the deck. —Megan Spurrell, associate director, articles
Round Hill Hotel and Villas, Montego Bay, Jamaica
I’ve written about it before and, in all likelihood, I’ll write about it again: the traditional Jamaican breakfast of ackee and saltfish is the perfect way to start the day. Ackee, a relative of lychee in the fruit family with only the faintest whisper of sweetness takes on the texture and consistency of a scrambled egg once cooked. A bit rubbery, nutty, almost creamy, the ackee pairs quite well with the flaky saltiness of the cured white fish (usually cod) and a few dashes of tabasco. If you’re staying in the Round Hill’s hotel, you’ll eat this on the breakfast terrace looking out at the sea. If you’ve gotten yourself a villa of your own, you might leave your order in the kitchen for a member of the wonderful staff to whip up for you poolside. Add a side of fresh-sliced fruit—mango, papaya, and pineapple each at their most succulent—and you're off to the races. —Charlie Hobbs, associate editor
La Mamounia, Marrakesh
It feels wholly insufficient to refer to the extravaganza that happens every morning at the Pavilion de la Piscine at La Mamounia as simply a…breakfast buffet. Yes, you get up and help yourself and of course there are the usual day-starters—scrambled eggs, yogurt, beautifully arranged cut fruit. But also so many more marvelous options–countless flaky pastries (Morocco was a French protectorate for nearly 50 years), dozens of different cakes (for breakfast!), perfectly flaky Moroccan flatbread, msemen, served with local honey and homemade jams, harissa soup, baghrir—a wonderfully spongy traditional pancake; coffee, fresh-squeezed juice and eggs, any which way, are brought directly to your al fresco table. The spread is special indeed, but it’s the overall setting–a breakfast theater of sorts–that really makes the experience. The tables all face the sprawling main pool. As you sip your first cappuccino and contemplate heading back for seconds, you see French women in Eres swimsuits already flipped once and working on their back tans; families from all over the Middle East and Europe staking out where they’ll spend the next several hours, honeymooners who may or may not leave the property over the course of the weekend, fit 30-somethings who (annoyingly) have already gone to the gym and are sipping green juices. It’s one of those fabulous people-watching places—sort of like being in a modern-day Slim Aarons photo. —Rebecca Misner, senior features editor
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Four Seasons Ritz Lisbon
That first morning of the first full day of your stay at the Four Seasons Ritz Lisbon, when you head downstairs for breakfast, you’ll feel a bit like Alice entering Wonderland. The whole hotel has a sort of mod grandeur that’s unlike like anything else, make no mistake, but that breakfast hall, man. It’s massive, first of all, with an off-white checkerboard motif on the ceiling, comfy armed dining chairs of military green with bright orange trim, and mirrored, tiered tables piled high with a buffet stocked with everything you need to start your day— delicate and creamy pasteis de nata, of course, made in-house but also pastries from cuisines across Europe and some seriously soft scrambled eggs. Decor does not a great breakfast make, of course, so it’s really that latter entry that secures this Four Seasons a place on the list. —CH
The St. Regis Mexico City
Sunday brunch at The St. Regis Mexico City’s open, airy Diana restaurant is like no other breakfast buffet I’ve seen before. The scope, for one, is enormous, with seemingly endless sweet and savory food stations. You won’t find bacon and eggs, but you will find Mexican food, charcuterie with freshly shaved meat, pasta, sushi, an elaborate dessert spread, and more. Highlights include the build-your-own ceviche, quesadillas, and gorditas; chilled shrimp and oysters; sushi bar; and the live music. If you have enough room for a cocktail, the Sangrita Maria's play on a Bloody Mary with mezcal instead of vodka is the hotel’s signature drink. Once you’re good and full, step outside for a stroll down the lovely Paseo de la Reforma. —Madison Flager, senior commerce editor
Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island, Australia
This September, I woke up on Kangaroo Island, Australia, to the sound of the Antarctic sea rushing up the shoreline just a few yards away from my bed, the freezing spray catching the morning light like fog and hanging in the air for an extra second or two before fading into the pale sky. A striking nowhere-else-in-the-world view like this is best accompanied with a meal that doesn’t steal the spotlight, and that’s exactly what I had for my final breakfast at Southern Ocean Lodge: beautifully ribbony scrambled eggs, roasted mushrooms, and ricotta over toast drizzled with honey. I would have devoured this deliciousness even while blindfolded, but I’ll recall that morning for a very long time for what it offered me—a feast for the tastebuds as well as the eyes. —Matt Ortile, associate editor
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Venice Simplon-Orient-Express
I have dreamed of riding the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express for years. After a warm June evening of mingling and drinking and singing “O Sole Mio” with fellow guests and the good-time ragazzi that staffed the train’s iconic sapphire-swathed bar car, as we rolled through French countryside toward the Italian Riviera, I could scarcely believe that my dream was becoming a reality. When I returned to my compartment onboard and fell into bed, I half-expected to wake up back in my apartment in New York—plucked from the fantasy. And yet, after a wink and a blink, there came the sun, a knock on my door, and the smell of buttery croissants and an oat milk cappuccino as the glistening Mediterranean came into view and the ground beneath my slippered feet happily rattled and rumbled. I will be forever grateful to that basket of viennoiserie and little pots of compote—and the fantastic train steward for bringing me my breakfast tray—for reassuring me that I was indeed on the VSOE. Even if only for a few remaining hours, the dream could continue. —MO
Jack's Camp, Botswana
What’s better than one breakfast? Two breakfasts, of course. At Jack’s, the first one arrives at your tent at six in the morning to prime you for your first safari of the day. It’s usually tea or freshly brewed coffee and buttery biscuits (toast if you ask for it), and it’s just enough to wake you up and get you on your way into the still-cold desert dawn. The second one comes midway through the safari—or in my case, after a two-hour-long horse ride through the desert. After having come within profusely-sweating distance from a lone bull elephant (when I was saved, presumably, by the shift in the wind’s direction—the bull could no longer detect us), the second round, set up in the shrubland on the hood of the safari vehicle, was the sign I needed that I was safe again. Our guide, Chemical, pulled out a hamper and laid out a spread of cereal, coffee, juice, muffins, and hard-boiled eggs on a checked table cloth—and I feasted like a queen. Another day, I slept through the safari and ate a cooked breakfast on the 36-seater dining table in the central mess tent, surrounded by Southern African archeological treasures and animal skulls in glass cases: there were eggs, muffins, cheese, and fresh fruit (bacon and sausages, if you like)—all made even better with a healthy pour of Jack’s special chili sauce. It all felt very Indiana Jones. —Arati Menon, global digital director
Le Meurice, Paris, France
Is there anything more deliciously, indulgently Parisian than starting your day in a gilded dining salon, observing a flurry of bow-tied waiters ferry petite trays of cafe au lait and pastries to women in furs and faces of make-up at 8:30 a.m.? This is the scene I couldn’t wait to leave bed for each morning at Le Meurice, one of Paris’s Dorchester Collection Grande Dames. And then there was the actual breakfast. Mine started with a silver pot of hot, strong black coffee, and a selection of eye-rollingly divine pastries from the master himself, Cédric Grolet (outside the hotel, a queue waits round the clock to snatch one of his pain suisse and croissant). I’d then move onto toast with lashings of French butter, a plate of cloud-fluffy eggs scrambled with spinach (something has to off set the butter, right?), fresh berries, and green juice. A tip: if you want an extra pain au chocolat, just ask. My waiter was always glad to bring one, conveniently in a bag, to nibble on for the rest of the day. —Erin Florio, executive editor
Taj Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad, India
I will never forget walking out of the very elaborate, very gilded dining room of the Taj Falaknuma Palace, buffet breakfast plate in hand, onto its veranda, where tables are laid out for those that wish to dine under its exquisite glass-domed roof. Situated at the southern end of the 32-acre palace complex, the al fresco patio looks out into the vastness of the Old City of Hyderabad, and that morning it was shrouded in an ethereal veil of winter mist. When I regained my composure and sat myself down, I returned to what was on my plate, a melange of delicious fare from around the world—Indian hotel buffets are inarguably the most staggering in scope. Among my favorites, though, were the many, many flaky-soft pastries that arrived laden on a tiered silver stand (much like during a high tea) and the bevy of brightly colored fresh juices that were served on a blue Mughal platter—looking like a bejeweled treat, not unlike every single corner of this opulent estate. —AM
Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin
Checking in here—getting whisked from the curbside views of the Brandenberg Gate mere yards away, past the marble lobby’s stained-glass rotunda and elephant-bedecked fountain, and into the care of the Kempinski-famed Ladies (and Gentlemen) in Red—I knew the hotel’s reputation as a haven for visiting presidents and dignitaries (the US Embassy is just next door, after all) as well as A-list celebrities. Berliners call it The Adlon for a reason—there’s no other German hotel quite as iconic. What I should have surmised earlier from this all and did not, however, was that the grand dame’s daily breakfast spread on the Bel Etage, the second floor of the lobby atrium, matches the clientele; dare I say it might outshine them. If the cappuccinos with Brandenberg Gate-stenciled cocoa dusted atop don’t get you, the unending array of food will: There’s fresh-baked breads, stunning fruit and mueslis, caviar and champagne, crepes, an omelet station, and even dim sum and mediterranean fare (it’s $90 per-head for a reason). It put even a behemoth Las Vegas buffet to shame—and it feels somehow wrong to call this a buffet, because it’s more of an experience of the senses where you can have a totally different meal morning after morning. Not to mention, the view of the lower floor’s gleaming, black-and-white checkered tiles lounge is perfect for enjoying some people-watching before you take on the day. —Shannon McMahon, senior destinations editor
Eastwind Oliverea Valley, Catskills, New York
What happens to hotel breakfasts when you wake up to find yourself completely snowed in overnight? Well, we found out earlier this year when we visited Eastwind Oliverea Valley, a glamping-style retreat set in Central Catskills. The answer: Breakfast in a cloth-lined wicker basket delivered right to your doorstep. Inside, a camp flask with freshly brewed coffee, still-warm pastries (in the midst of a snowstorm—how?), OJ, boiled eggs (also still warm), granola, yogurt, and preserves and condiments. It was more than enough to start our day off on the right note, weather be damned. In fact, we used it as the perfect excuse to climb right back under our Pendleton blankets and spend the morning watching the snow through our expansive A-frame cabin windows—not a care in the world. —AM
The David Kempinski Tel Aviv
When hotels have “breakfast included” listed as an additional perk for booking as this one did, it’s not always clear what to expect—but whatever picture I had painted in my head was wildly exceeded. Fresh fruit, decadent pastries, gourmet proteins, and Israeli specialties (think baba ghanoush, hummus, and fresh honeycomb) are just a few of the delights to be found at the breakfast buffet here. Not only was the presentation overflowing with choices, but the bountiful way in which every dish was displayed—including small descriptions breaking down the intricacies of each dish—truly added to the experience. The cherry on top? Breakfast is served in the light-flooded marble lobby with a head-on view of the bustling Tel Aviv beach. —Emily Adler, associate social media manager
Raffles Singapore
Breakfast at Raffles Singapore is what lush tropical mornings are made of. The air is variously warm in the stately open courtyard and cool in little nooks with dark beams and high ceilings—it is all especially comforting after an evening of Singapore Slings the night prior. It's a joy to come padding through the storied Tiffin Room, open since 1892, and serving up some of the best Asian breakfasts in the land. Of course you can indulge in the usual sweet suspects—cinnamon french toast, oatmeal, tropical fruit, and such. But the real heroes are the Asian choices: the seafood mee goreng, with thick and chewy noodles with juicy morsels of tiger prawns in a savory but surprisingly light sauce; or my childhood favorite, a bowl of warm and comforting seafood congee that comes with a bouquet of toppings neatly presented in little bowls. It's a hug in a mug. For some real fortitude, the nasi lemak is a mix of crispy chicken served with jasmine rice, a dollop of fried egg, and spicy sambal sauce—a breakfast of champions. Cool glass, rattan upholstery, and mirrored ceilings are a perfect frame for this savory, hearty start to the new day. —Pallavi Mohan Kumar, senior visuals editor
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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