I think we may just have saved the best till last here. OK, it isn’t 2014 now but I think this was worth waiting for. We expected something slightly different from Marcus Bonfanti and we weren’t disappointed. Here’s a road warrior’s guide to the Top 5 hotel breakfasts:

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day and usually I don’t subscribe to this way of thinking, eating my first meal of the day around 4pm! BUT touring can be a brutal endeavour sometimes and after a good gig and serious night out, breakfast not only becomes the most important meal of the day, it becomes the only thing that makes any sense to you.

So here are my Top 5 Hotel Breakfasts of 2014 (in no particular order)…

NovotelNovotel, Schiffbaustrasse, Zurich, Switzerland

Not only is this a quality breakfast that has all the necessary components from fried to fruit for my bass player Matthew to have his well-planned-out 7 plates. It is open from 6am and the people in charge were actually happy to see us when we rocked up at 6am after a pretty serious after-show party out in Zurich and served us up exactly what we needed to make everything alright. They also didn’t eject my Tour Manager Jim when he decided to light a post breakfast cigarette in the restaurant. They didn’t let him smoke it but they didn’t kick him out.

KimosKimos,  Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, UK

Not strictly a Hotel Breakfast as it isn’t attached to a hotel BUT it serves breakfast all day and not just your standard fry up but also Mediterranean Breakfast and Foul Mudammas (tastes so much better than it sounds). When I lived in Liverpool I’d eat all my meals (usually one a day as they serve ‘em big) at this place and now whenever we are in the city I take the band there for dinner and breakfast regardless of what delights the hotel is offering. It could never beat Kimos on taste or price.

Hotel ImHotel Im GVZ Ingolstadt, Germany

This hotel is owned by Audi and precision engineering doesn’t come close to doing this place justice. My windows and blinds were all remote controlled and offered me every natural lighting option and permutation I could imagine and a few more I hadn’t thought of.
This way of thinking was apparent throughout the hotel and even made it into the breakfast where not only did we have all the options you would expect but there was a Vitamin Bar where you could wash away the night before and give the day ahead a kickstart in many different ways all laid out for you in the booklets provided.
There were also loads of coloured marker pens by the egg boiling pot. Why? So you can mark your egg and identify it when you come to collect it as we all like ‘em done that little bit different. Just beautiful.

DOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAucks at Kilspindie, Aberlady, Scotland

This is like a home for battered musicians and has been both the solution and cause for us on many occasions. I’ve woken up to this incredible fry up on countless occasions and it’s almost brought me close to tears. The best thing about it tho’ is the many journeys you can take to arrive at the fry up. Whether its playing there the night before and being woken up by the proprietor and general legend Malcolm Duck playing last night’s gig through his portable speakers in the hotel corridor shouting “Time for breakfast” or putting a call in to him after a brutal leg of a UK tour and stopping by to ‘get straight’ or just hanging out there and drinking whisky with him all night on a day off during a tour. I strongly believe this breakfast can literally cure anything, oh yeah and it’s served with a healthy measure of a top quality single malt too…

GerhausGasthaus Tübli, Gersau, Switzerland

Now this breakfast was great for one special reason and that is that it was organised with the chef at 5am after a pretty heavy post gig session with him and his friends in the hotel bar. At one point my drummer Craig said that he’d never had a fondue; the chef took it upon himself to promise him one before he left (the only opportunity being breakfast). My bass player Matthew enquired about another dish he’d had before somewhere which the chef also promised to make him so we all had a go! At 11am we all sat around the breakfast table as this lovely bloke brought out about 5 tailor-made breakfasts to all our requests after about 3 hours sleep.


They also crowded round to watch the crazy Scottish drummer wade through an entire fondue for breakfast… and he did!