Breakfast food at hotel restaurant buffets

Breakfast food at hotel restaurant buffets

No matter where you are in the world, the breakfast food offered in hotel restaurants is often anything but innovative and imaginative.
How often have you got the end of the breakfast buffet and thought ‘what looks the best’ instead of ‘I can’t make a decision, a little bit of everything!’.

In Australia, boring breakfast buffets can be blamed on major hotel chains standardized their offering for breakfast buffets at their properties. Their aim was to ensure that the breakfast buffet served in Brisbane was the same as the one in Melbourne and in Adelaide. This sounds comforting to guests, but in reality it comes down to increasing their buying power.

For example, the more restaurants are buying the same products the bigger the group discount. This move didn’t really allow the chef much scope and imagination, but like most things in hotels these days it’s about dollars and cents instead of consumer selection and satisfaction. So what should a breakfast buffet at a hotel include?

Every restaurant breakfast buffet should have standard offerings such cereals, sliced fresh fruit, fresh juices, pastries for the continental breakfast and egg, bacon and sausages for the hot breakfast. But standard items don’t have to be boring. Why not try a different style of bacon like Applewood Smoked Bacon or even different sausages like chicken and Mintbush.

Apart from the standard items there are many ideas that you could use to enhance your breakfast buffet. If you currently don’t offer an egg station, seriously consider it. There is nothing worse than scrambled eggs from the buffet or waiting ten minutes for some fresh ones from the kitchen especially when they are in a rush. Guests not only like fresh eggs but will also enjoy the showmanship that comes from serving from a live cooking station. You will also be able to offer fried eggs, scrambled and omelets.

Depending on the room available around the buffet, you may also be able to offer guests fresh pancakes, flapjacks or waffles. They use relatively the same mixture and once again the product is being cooked live and not taken out of a packet. It will give your buffet a real value added feel to the guest.

Instead of offering canned peaches or pears, why not stew your own fruits? It doesn’t take much to put a sugar syrup together with vanilla beans pods or for a twist from the usual try add lemon myrtle as the fruits cool. You can even rotate the offering of stewed fruits depending on what is seasonally available.

Particularity in Australia and other western countries, there is a increase of tourists and corporate travelers coming from Asia, so as such it might be worth considering an innovative product like a noodle bar to the buffet. A basic offering could include a selection of fresh egg, rice, or bean noodles plus a few condiments like choi sum, bbq pork, duck and shallots with a fresh master chicken stock. Guests simply choose what they wish then you make the bowl of noodles once again right in front of them. This concept could be developed further: instead of using a boiler, why not do a fresh wok dish? If you have a spare bain marie dish on the buffet, why not create a number of international dishes that are available for breakfast in different countries such as beef rendang, congee, miso soup or rice noodles. Do a little research on your guests, find out where they are from, and then rotate these dishes accordingly.

Instead of using pre-made jams in jars, why not make your own jams and conserves. This gives you the opportunity to be innovative with unique flavours such as blackberry pear or apricot vanilla to name a few. If you are able to find them from the markets, an interesting addition could be a rack of honey directly from the beehive. Other non-standard breakfast items like fresh Australian farmhouse cheeses or Tasmanian smoked salmon are always popular. Why not even try lightly house smoking your salmon with paperbark.

An important ingredient of any breakfast buffet is espresso coffee and freshly brewed teas. So many restaurants offer brewed coffee that smells like coffee yet tastes like crude oil. It does take more staff to offer espresso coffees, but it’s often the little things that make a big difference, like the smell of fresh espresso coffee wafting throughout the lobby area. Guests will also appreciate unique tea blends that are packed full of freshness instead of stale tea bags which are often over-brewed.

As breakfast revenue is often in-line with the hotel’s occupancy, an increase in breakfast revenue is often difficult. To overcome this and increase revenue, why not have the sales team put together a promotion for the hotel’s local corporate clients, encouraging them to have early breakfast meetings. Maybe you could offer the breakfast buffet with endless espresso until 12pm, encouraging them to stay in the hotel longer to do business. There are endless ideas.

If you are looking for more breakfast ideas or suggestion to enhance your hotel’s breakfast buffet, why not get a copy of my Australian Menu Planning Guide.