What's a Michelin star breakfast like?

Four courses first thing in the morning at Moor Hall

“No, you get everything,” said the waiter, when he saw me perusing the menu. “It’s a four-course breakfast, madam, no need to choose. Would you like orange or apple juice to start?”

I’ve had a few breakfasts at hotels with Michelin-star restaurants: L’Enclume, Northcote, Farlam Hall to name a few. But this is the first time I can remember one being four courses. My dad creating his own four courses from a breakfast buffet doesn’t count.

The dining room at The Barn at Moor Hall

For the tutting pedants among you, I know this is not a Michelin-star breakfast as such (headlines gonna headline), but rather one cooked in a venue home to both a two-star (Moor Hall) and a one-star (The Barn) restaurant. The latter being where breakfast is served. Michelin inspectors, as far as I know, don’t inspect breakfasts. But anyway…

It had only been a matter of hours since I had glazed my internal organs with seven snacks and at least seven courses (including four sweet ones) at Moor Hall’s jaw-dropping two-star restaurant but somehow I was ready for more.

No diddy jam jars here

You won’t find those tiny jars of jam at Moor Hall. Everything is made in-house. So the four dinky ceramic pots set in an aesthetically pleasing curve in front of me contain homemade granola, jam, marmalade, and what can only be described as Michelin-level Nutella: a whipped chocolate and salted sunflower seed spread. I pick up a tiny teaspoon to taste it and this chocolate-ambivalent diner is sold.

There is also a mini Kilner jar of amber-coloured honey with one of those honey dippers. A feature that excites me a little more than it should.

Stripey croissants and sourdough

To go with the granola comes another ceramic pot containing berry compote-topped house-cultured yoghurt that has been flavoured with Meadowsweet from the garden (obviously), giving it an alluring, almost medicinal taste.

Tea and coffee arrive too. It’s the kind of tea that never quite reaches the ‘builder’s’ strength I prefer. An optional add-on (at a cost) of English Sparkling or Champagne and caviar is available. We pass.

Smoked salmon made in house at Moor Hall

Course two is a napkin-lined basket of sourdough toast and stripey 98% butter croissants to slather with more cultured butter and/or any of the various aforementioned confitures. I have never tasted a better croissant in the UK.

Only house cured salami for me from now on

Next, a wooden board of house-made salami with fennel seed and garlic, and a plate of house-cured whisky barrel smoked salmon with a quenelle of chive-flecked sour cream and miniature paper-thin slices of rye bread. The salmon is so stunning it wins over the gorgeous Salforder opposite me who would never normally touch smoked salmon even with my artisan breadstick.

We’re starting to flag already but more is on its way.

A sausage and BP sidecar

A cast iron dish of Middle White pork sausages (impeccable) and the softest black pudding you’ve ever tasted (unless you had it in a pre-dinner snack about 14 hours earlier) is a mere sidecar to the main event.

Eggs Benedict at breakfast at Moor Hall

This is a homemade crumpet topped with mushroom duxelles, crispy bacon, a perfect poached egg, glossy yellow hollandaise and a crunchy potato crown. An eggs benny like you’ve never seen.

The layers of buttery umami flavour prove a little too much for the Salford lad but this is the stuff of dreams for me. Best bit? The crispy potato. Once a crisps girl, always a crisps girl.

The breakfast menu at Moor Hall

We box up a few bits and roll ourselves around the dew-glistened vegetable garden and grounds for an essential bit of postprandial movement. Nasturtiums still going strong in mid-November.

I have always dreamed of a breakfast this outrageous. They are always special at places like this but this was next-level extravagance. It’s excessive, yes. We had no need for lunch. But it’s a breakfast I’ll not forget in a hurry.

Back to Warbies crumpets and baked beans for the rest of the year.

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