South-coast breakfasts : Boat House Cafe, Chichester Marina

A couple of weeks ago we had lunch at the newly opened Boat House Cafe in Chichester Marina and after seeing us mention it here, they asked us back to try out their breakfast. Whilst I was happy to embrace a free meal, it threw my husband into a moral quandary...

"Should we do a Michael Winner?" he said
"What pose for a photo with the manager?"
"No, offer to pay, because otherwise if we say it's good in the review then no one will believe us..."
"Err, but we've already said it was good and that was when we did pay.."
"Oh, ok"

So we went along today. After seemingly endless days of rain, the sun finally shone and the sailor's launching their dinghies into the cold waters of the harbour looked visibly cheered by the springlike conditions. Once again the cafe was busy, we arrived at 10:30am and within an hour the place was nearly full and that was before lunch.

This is definitely not somewhere you show up at for weekend lunch in a group and just hope they can fit you in. Thank heavens they will have the deck area too in the summer.

So, first off, their breakfast menu is not as extensive as lunch and they don't have a children's menu during the morning, but lets face it, we are probably among the very few who take our child out for breakfast. No pancakes on the menu sadly, but they did have a really great granola which came in a huge portion, though it could have done with a little more yoghurt.

Jim had trouble deciding between Eggs Benedict & The Full English (he always does!) He opted for full English in the end, which came with lovely crunchy bacon and a solitary sausage... Uh-oh, I did warn him he should have asked for two!

Theo made short work of the sour dough toast and had a bit of a fight on his hands keeping his parents paws off it too. It was wonderfully chewy and just right with the jam. We had a hot chocolate, babyccino, coffee and orange juice between us. All promptly served and just the right temperature.

But food aside the real joy of this place is the atmosphere. It's all come together in a wonderful way, the bustling location, the happy helpful staff and the rustic cosy interior and personally, if I was picking a place to eat, I'd say one that scours Twitter looking feedback from their customers probably isn't a bad one to start with. If you're not from round this neck of the woods, there is a Boat House Cafe in Swanwick marina too and they are also part of a bigger chain which includes several restaurants in Hampshire.

Thank you Boat House Cafe for our lovely breakfast. We'll be seeing you again soon...