029 - First Floor Cafe

First Floor Cafe
Lakeland Plastics, Alexandra Buildings Windermere LA23 1BQ 015394 88100



First of all let me make it clear that the First Floor Cafe whilst in Lakeland Plastics flagshop store in Windermere, it is in fact a totally separate business owned by the famous chef Stephen Doherty - and this blog entry is about the First Floor Cafe and not Lakeland Plastics.



To those who know - the name Stephen Doherty is usually associated with quality of the first order - once described as the enforcer for the Roux brothers and the first Englishman to hold 3 Michelin stars. Thus any eating place that bears his name will always bring with it a high level of expectation. Thus it is all the more disappointing that breakfastliverpool had such a poor experience at the First Floor Cafe when hopes had been so high.

Initial signs were good - tea was served quickly and with a pot of hot water as well:-


Granary toast with a pot of marmalade and butter was of a standard - nice bread, decent marmalade but why oh why those nasty foil packets of butter - they smack of convenience and penny pinching over quality and class, why not just butter the toast and be done with it. Also 2 packets is never going to be enough.


The rot started to set in when the breakfast muffin arrived - both the bacon and and sausage had seen seriously too much time in either a bain marie or were left over from the previous days service - dry and very hard - not nice at all


However the really nasty piece of work was left to the poached haddock and coddled egg - at least that was how it was described on the menu - the fish was not only a very small portion, but much worse it was seriously over cooked and the egg was fried not coddled - when I drew attention to this I was told that it was a coddled egg as it was fried in butter - I could not believe my ears - if you want to know what a coddled egg is follow this link - Coddled Egg


Despite protracted email correspondance about being served a fried egg when the menu clearly states coddled egg, First Floor Cafe have refused to comment and the matter is now in the hands of Cumbria Trading Standards.

First Floor Cafe was a very disappointing experience - very much a case of style over substance. The use of the term coddled egg on a menu to described an egg fried in butter is nothing more than a cynical deception of a public generally ignorant of what a coddled egg really is and who mistakenlly trust in the reputation of a once great chef. Its like saying a scrambled egg is an egg boiled in milk. breakfastLiverpool will not be returning and suggest that a better breakfast dining experience can be had elsewhere.