Breads Etcetera

Why this place has only 3.5 stars? They provide almost no line, big, satisfactory and interesting egg dishes to choose, decent coffee and bottomless bread that you can toast to the level your heart desires. The only reason I’m knocking one star off is because the service is slow, the tables have absolutely no space so you have to pretend to have a family breakfast with your neighbors and I didn’t try their dinner dishes yet.

I frigging love the concept of this place. Order your eggs from the menu the way you like it, while you wait for it, go up to the bread station and cut your own slice of at least 4 different types of bread (I tried them all… A few times). Bring all your greedy cuts back to your table where you’ll find a toaster. They also have loads of different jams, Nutella, peanut butter. My fave is the passion fruit curd. Delish

Wowee would I recommend this place
Four of us went on a sunny saturday at 11.30 and were seated straight away
It was busy, there was no queue, a few seats free but a good atmosphere
I’d just walk past this place if I didn’t know how good it is inside! From the outside the brown old unassuming exterior doesn’t boast how good it is! But apparently the locals know as on a Sunday there are queues out the door!
Once you are in there are a few shelves where they sell their home baked loaves and then lots of tables with a toaster on each one.
The idea is that you pick your main and this includes unlimited toast and spread. Once you sit down you are offered one of their homemade smoothies or coffee (smoothies look amazing and my friend recommended the mango and passionfruit and I had a americano which was tasty). You then have a tasty looking menu to choose from. Ranges from full English, baked eggs, French toast, pancakes and Bircher muesli.
I went for the pancakes with whipped cream, maple syrup and berries — it was massive! And so tasty with a nice berry compote between two huge pancakes, topped with tonnes of strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Really recommend.
My friend got the baked eggs with smoked salmon, spinach and topped Gruyère and it looked so good and totally filled her up.
Other two friends got full English — recommend the bacon and sausages!
The bread selection is also amazing — recommend the seeded loaf but be careful when toasting as they don’t pop themselves (there were a few burnt smells coming from the table across from us). Along with the amazing homemade jams — recommend the kiwi, melon and ginger and strawberry and lavender.
This place is cute, different, does great food and would highly recommend to anyone!

SUCH a great value for the money: £5 for a delicious sourdough pizza with quality toppings. That’s really hard to beat, especially in a city as notoriously expensive as London.
I only wish we’d found this gem earlier in our visit to London, because we would definitely have returned.
We also got a loaf of wholewheat bread for breakfast the following morning, and that was great, too.

Delicious breads and fantastic range of jams and curds. Toasting at the table is such a fun idea! The ordered food is nice but always comes out cold on cold plates.

I’ve been in here for breakfast a lot as the location is convenient to me and they always do a pretty good job. I’d call it more 3.5 stars than 4, but I’m rounding up because the staff are friendly and quality is consistent. A reliable place, if the line isn’t too long and you are in the neighborhood. The all-​you-​can-​eat toast-​it-​yourself bread concept is cool — almost American in style — and the made-​on-​site breads taste pretty good.
All the breakfast plates I’ve tried have been up to par — not super-​memorable and nothing groundbreaking, but consistently tasty and well-​prepared. I especially like their gravlax and usually get one of the plates that includes it.
The vibe is kind of studenty/​hipster/​artsy. I don’t know if everyone would particularly enjoy the ambiance, but I’ve found it to be the best breakfast around Clapham High Street.

Vous voulez un brunch?! Non mais je veux dire un VRAI Brunch ??! Ce lieu est magique pour un tas de raisons:
1– Vous êtes plongés dans un cadre Vintage 50’s avec des grille-​pain d’époque et des pots de marmelade en guise de verre.
2– Une musique de fond (à volume correct pour un réveil en douceur) rock des années 50, qui vous met de bonne humeur
3– Les serveurs sont d’une telle gentillesse et très souriants.
4 — (Et le plus important) il y a une liste d’une dizaine de formules différentes pour votre Brunch que ce soit à l’anglaise (saucisse, bacon, oeufs.) ou de succulents pancakes ! Sans oublier que vous avez une boisson au choix (thé, jus d’orange pressé, café…) ainsi qu’un étalage avec une grande variété de pains avec un beurre fermier et un large choix de confitures !
Ils proposent aussi des repas mais je n’ai pas encore eu l’occasion de tester !
Bref mon meilleur souvenir culinaire made in London !
Foncez !

Breads Etcetera is a fun idea with weak execution.
It is a brunch place with great big toasters on the table.
The idea is you cut slices of real good sourdough bread, toast them at your table and put on any of a wide variety of toppings —
and eat these with whatever other breakfast dish you ordered.
Nifty idea and playing with the toasters is definitely entertaining.
(The toasters are v e r y s l o w … but at least that keeps you from burning the toast.)
Besides the toasters — the best part of Breads Etcetera is the crowd.
It is young, and totally cool — and even by London standards — socially attractive.
If you are a lonelyhearts,
I can promise you that at breakfast tomorrow
regardless of your gender or inclination,
the person of your fantasies will be eating at Breads Etcetera.
(although they are likely to be completely inaccessible.)
***************
But restaurants are about food rather than fantasy …
and on food, Breads Etcetera falls really short.
The reason that so few older people are at Breads Etcetera,
is that Mum and Grandmum have cooked a million breakfasts in their lifetime
and know what breakfast is supposed to be like.
Women who have cooked breakfast all their lives will have little patience for Breads Etceteras failings.
Here is what my breakfast was like:
1) The first flat white I was served had old out-​of-​date milk.
It had to be sent back to the kitchen.
2) The second flat white I was served had bad tasting coffee …
so I gave up on hot beverages as a lost cause.
3) The sourdough bread that is the reason for being of the restaurant is no great shakes. There is better bread at well over 80% of the bakeries in London.
4) The omelet with salmon and onions looked gorgeous — but was tasteless.
Or rather was tasteless for the right ¹⁄₃ of the omelet.
The remaining ²⁄₃ was actually ok because that is where the fish kicked in.
The eggs didnt taste like much; the onions didn’t taste like much; the salmon itself had good parts and boring parts.
This suggests to me that the raw ingredients used at Breads Etcetera are not that good.
Old eggs,
onions that have been precut and allowed to sit out for a long time before they are used and
frozen or low grade fish
will be partially or entirely tasteless.
This is what they seem to sell at Breads Etcetera.
So play with your toaster, and think private thoughts about the crowd —
but if you want a good meal first thing in the morning,
don’t come here.
Go to any of the huge number of cafes in London that will know how to knock out a proper English breakfast.

Fantastic brunch location with a great selection of Artisan breads for toasting.
Nice selection of cooked breakfasts including good vegetarian breakfast and particularly nice soft boiled eggs out of their shells very nice

Okay and not too expensive (5 GBP each) pizzas here. Friendly staff.
It was a bit surprising to have the 10% service charge automatically added one time I was here, even though we were only a party of three.

If you’re looking for a hearty breakfast in clapham this is the place to go. They have many different breakfast choices, all of which are massive portions. Every breakfast comes with a DIY option which means you can help yourself to bread and toast it yourself. My advice is to go easy on this because once your breakfast arrives you might be too stuffed to eat it! My favourite breaky is the Cowboy which is a fried egg baked in a piece of bread with beans and sausages. Brilliant for a hangover. Also make sure you hav cash when you go as that’s all they accept. Be prepared to queue on a weekend, it’s always busy.

I am not entirely sure why some reviews here have criticised the owners attitude towards them. I had an entirely great experience. I am not very familiar in the Clapham area but was going for breakfast with a friend. We both had not been there before but were suggested to try this by a friend.
We were seated straight away and got menus. When we left around 12.30pm on a bank holiday people were waiting outside so coming early might avoid a wait. My friend ordered a fruit salat while I took the pancakes (see picture). They were simply delicious and staff was very friendly. The quality is right but to be honest, this does not come cheap.
Although the visit was a nice and delicious experience, there were a few things I would like to see improved:
— we waited more than 45 minutes for our food — too long!
— service charge was automatically added to our bill — if I don’t come in a large group I would like to decide myself how much I tip — big minus!
Overall, this is a great place to enjoy brunch or breakfast. If you can, come on a quiet day during the week and be prepared for large portions. While the quality of the food and friendliness of staff are great, there are a few things that can be improved. In any case, DO TRY THE PANCAKES with fruit, maple and cream — delicious!

This place is wildly popular. Every Sunday when I walk back after badminton, I see the devoted fans of Breads Etecetra forming long queues outside for the privilege of eating there, even in the rain.
This is primarily a bakery. They make a variety of breads. It’s attraction as a breakfast/​brunch place lies in the fact that it asks the customers to slice (at a communal table) and toast (there are toasters at every table) the loaves themselves … as much of it as they want. All the other items in the breakfast menu is accompanied by this DIY bread «dish».
I have tried the big omelette. One can choose two fillings, one of which can be non-​vegetarian. What I got was a preparation of immense size (it must have been made of at least 4 eggs). The waitress quipped that it’s usually difficult to finish. Huh !! She did not know me :) After considerable efforts I finished the dish. My friend had an Australian breakfast. This is not very different from the English version. It wasn’t bad but I didn’t like the idea of gravy at breakfast. These items were priced at a reasonable range of £7-£8 each.
I particularly like the orange juice here. Both of my visits here have been after strenuous sessions of badminton, and I have had quite a lot of the juice. At £2.50 for a small glass, it’s expensive, but good. The coffee on the other hand was below par. They had put too much chocolate into my mocha, converting it into almost a hot chocolate.
The USP of Breads Etecetra, of cutting your own bread, is very novel, but it creates it’s own issues. The slices are unlikely to be of uniform thickness, and some might not fit into the toasters. I like the idea, but cutting my own bread seems to me to be too much work for breakfast. I might be back, but not very often.

I find Breads Etcetera to one of Clapham’s redeeming features. If you can find a time that doesn’t belong to the middle of the weekend, it makes the visit, as I imagine similar to the chilled out vision it’s often describe as. I’ve been three times: for scones, for pizza, and for toast (finally). I knew id like it web I stepped in because it was deserted and playing the Juno soundtrack. To conclude, scones are surprisingly delicious, pizza is yum, and bread involved a Duallit toaster. Not only fun, but allows you to avoid the slightly poor-​on-​occasion service. They set the oven off smoking last visit but it was quite amusing. As I said, choose the right time and it’ll make you feel more a fan of clapham than stereotypes would have you believe.

I’ve been to Breads Etc (‘BT’) twice now and still remember the first time I visited this small little French café style shop-​front on Clapham High Street (back in July). Needless to say, I was hungover and in desperate need of a strong coffee and a greasy breakfast. Both of which BT did not fail to disappoint!
Sure, the café was small and cramped and we had to line up for about 15 minutes or so before getting a table (which are communal by the way) but hey, for good food, I’m happy to wait in line, making small talk with my friends (discussing the events of the previous night) whilst trying to ignore my rumbling stomach.
There was also a small fresh fruit and bread stand outside where people can wander up to buy bread to take home. Me, I was staring at the loaves of fresh bread salivating in anticipation of what lay waiting for me inside.
The breakfast/​brunch menu is reasonable given the size of the café itself and I think the prices were commensurate with the serving sizes and quality of the food (totally recommend the sauteed wild mushrooms and your choice of pates, but I had the mackerel pâté FYI) however, one small gripe about the size of the plates — they were probably 2 – 3 times larger than the volume of the food placed on them and given the limited space on our tables (with the toaster, breads, drinks, condiments etc), it was tricky manoeuvring things around.
Also, having only lived in London for about 7 months now and originally hailing from Sydney, a city spoilt with a vast array of quality cafes and brunch hotspots, this reminded me of Sydney and slightly gave me my first twinge of homesickness! Oh, and the fact that Paris is one of my fave cities also brought immediate, pleasant first impressions of the place.
So enough said! If you’re ever in the Clapham Common vicinity and in need of some decent food or coffee, this is a must try!

Delicious bread… what else do you want from a place with such a name?
I love bread. So it was with great anticipation that I let my friend lead me here for my second (or was it third?) breakfast of the day. Granted it was about 11 or so and we may have been creeping into brunch territory but that’s another thread for discussion later.
I love that that ovens are right next to the door so you get that blast of warm fresh bread as soon as you walk in. Brilliant! However, it started to go a little bit downhill from there. The place is packed and the tables communal. I like meeting new people as much as the next guy and probably talking to said people more than the next three people in line but still I’m a bit hesitant when it comes to pressing up against their leg.
I did enjoy the concept of being able to select and slice your own bread and then toast it to your desired level of browness. And the selection of jams and preserves were fantastic as well. I just wish that a) the «selection of breads» were more than just a collection of end pieces (if you are going to make bread your mainstay of a menu, then make sure you have it in overwhelming quantities), b) that navigating the bread slicing area didn’t require the finesse and dexterity of a ballerina that let’s face it, I’ll never have and c) that there were some savoury topping choices because a sugar rush at 11am is just asking for trouble once 3 o’clock rolls around.
I ordered a simple English breakfast to go with my bread and it came out well enough. I was jealous that Duey had the mackerel pâté which was phenomenal and I’ll definitely be getting some of that next time. The coffee was pretty good but hasn’t yet topped Monmouth for depth of flavour.
Overall, 4 stars because DIY was exciting and the bread was truly great. But I think for a hangover place I’ll knock it down to 3 as it is too much chaos to keep track of when just standing up takes most of your surviving brain cells.

Toasters, toasters everywhere and loads of bread to eat! Never before have I seen a toaster with 8 slots for slices. You heard me, this is some family style toaster shit going down.
So I came here for brunch recently, with a hangover that was well deserved when looking back at the photos from the night before. After browsing the menu and eying up the selection of bread before me I decided to go for their unlimited toast and a serious portion of scrambled eggs. Now I love a good bit of DIY novelty when it come to breakfast but seriously… Only one bread knife in the whole place? As you can imagine in my delicate state it took me a while to negotiate the bread and cutting position which induced some toe tapping and sighing from the waiting patrons. Come on! Give a girl a break, I’ve still got a lot of alcohol in my system.
So for breakfasts this place is awesome, their eggs are lovely, selection of bread is awesome, but their homemade baked beans are little to be desired. Don’t mess with the good stuff Breads Etc. Henzi did it right, so don’t try and change that.
Price wise it’s good value for money, a little cramped and warm in hot weather with friendly yet slow service. Maybe I was asking for too much, maybe I was just too excited by the industrial toaster on my table. I’ll come back, but maybe not for a while.

Hm.
THE CONCEPT? Five stars.
–I love the toasters on every table and the DIY all-​you-​can-​eat toast buffet.
–The coffee beans are roasted onsite (apparently); my first americano was delicious.
THE EXECUTION? Two stars.
–The toaster on my table was a bit naff, and due to the communal nature of it I ended up launching a neighbouring diner’s toast into someone else’s lap whilst trying to free my own (burning) slices from the toaster’s vice-​like grip.
–The homemade baked beans were gross. Just… gross. That’s all I have to say about that.
–The spreads for the toast were store bought (peanut butter, jam, nutella). I would have liked to have seen some homemade jam and/​or nut butters. Furthermore, if Breads etcetera has nothing against Sunpat peanut butter, why not just serve me Heinz Baked Beans? (see point regarding failure of excecution above.)
–Despite everything else being communal (tables, spreads, breads, bread knives), the butter was individually packaged. Waste of resources, like whoa. Just put a tub of butter on the table, and call it a day!
–The bread was merely average, even bordering on below average. Many loaves from which to choose were burnt on the top. None of the bread was marked so as to tell diners what they were about to get themselves into. One loaf I sliced from was gooey on the inside with some sort of savoury (but not at all savoury tasting, if you get what I mean) stickiness that, I’ll be honest, grossed me the fuck out. I have no guesses as to what THAT loaf was supposed to be.
–My second americano was bitter.
I might return. But, then again, I might not. That’s how I feel about this place.

I’ve only gone and done it. I’ve dished out a very rare 5 star upon this place. Visited again at the weekend and I just freakin love it here.
Everything I said before still stands — but the three of us who went for some hangover brunch actually had fun in here. Fun on a hangover you cry? Yes. Firstly I managed to clumsily knock a glass of water all over the girls sitting next to me — but that’s ok, banter and conversation followed and all was forgotten. Then some replacements moved in next to us and we had even more chat about festivals and music etc, all scoffing bread and tasty food.
It’s like a Clapham early afternoon social club. Come and chat and share and laugh and eat. Thanks Breads!

Trust me guys, as a French person, I’d say that I am supposed to be in the right position to criticise that kind of traditional food restaurants. But yesterday Breads Etcetera gave me a big lesson of food. I ate one of the best bread ever. Actually, it was not only just one bread but a full range of awesome & fresh breads: whole breads, olives herbs breads, nuts breads, Etcetera. You’ll love that place for all its symbols: a friendly & smiley staff, a casual and warm atmosphere will make you feel like home.
High recommended, that place can’t be missed.

This bakery has mutated so that it now resembles a bustling bistro café. It still sells itself on its delicious range of organic breads, of which there are a multitude of varieties to try. However, you can sit down and eat a full meal here without touching a slice of their delicious sourdough.
When I visited I had a healthy breakfast, despite it being 2pm. My girlfriend tried a caesar salad. The food was good, if not spectacular. I was also tempted by the DIY toast option on the menu — unlimited toast with a range of toppings from the big, shiny toasters in the centre of the room.
Service was pretty awful, but we had sympathy for the waitress because she was working a large room of lunchtime Claphamites alone. If the owners are reading — hire some extra staff!
One more thing: I imagine this place is good for breakfasts, but do get there early to grab a table.