Getting My Veggie Breakfast on at Iydea Brighton

As breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day (you only need to take one look at the Turkish breakfast I ate in Istanbul to agree with me), it needs to be done right – especially when you’re on holiday. Before pounding the pavements and coastline of Brighton on our recent visit, I wanted to make sure that I had been sufficiently fed and watered. Which meant hunting down a big vegetarian breakfast in the midst of a lot of great eateries and vegetarian restaurants.

Iydea’s name kept cropping up time and again as somewhere who serve a sizeable breakfast menu with a lot of options. I was slightly put-off by the fact that they have two locations and a logo that makes them seem more like a bakery chain than a vegetarian cafe (Google it if you don’t know what I mean), but I was willing to look past this and listen to my growling stomach.

We arrived at the North Laine location around 11am (because we’d had a holiday lie-in, of course) and sat outside in the sun. Again, I was worried, because breakfast is only served until 11.15am, so I thought they might refuse us, but they happily took our orders of Poached Egg a la Iydea for me and the Iydea Big Breakfast for Scott.

I did notice that several of the breakfast items are pre-cooked and sat under heat lamps at the counter, which was disconcerting, especially as it was nearing the end of service. I can only think this is because of a small staff and kitchen? 

Luckily, the eggs are cooked fresh and my plate turned up looking pretty tasty indeed. The rocket seemed a little out of place and the pot of sour cream on the side didn’t really add anything to the dish, but there was a decent amount of avocado (thumbs up) and smoked cheese and the side order of homemade baked beans I had with it were wonderfully tomato-y and not too sweet.

Scott’s breakfast had an impressive array of vegetarian goodies, including homemade hash browns, veggie sausages and mushrooms, but unfortunately most of these had been sat under the aforementioned heat lamps and so were lukewarm and a little overcooked. The eggs and toast were fresh, but Scott felt that the homemade baked beans were actually the highlight of the dish.

The breakfast menu at Iydea is definitely impressive for a vegetarian-only cafe, but I would recommend getting there earlier in the morning, so as to avoid getting any items that were cooked before their time. Come for the outside terrace, friendly staff and homemade baked beans.

• 17 Kensington Gardens, North Laine
• Open Mon – Sat 9.30am – 5.30pm; Sun 10am – 5.30pm
• www.iydea.co.uk