3 Delicious Brunch Recipes Worth A Try
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The first Grind opened its doors in Shoreditch in 2011, right on Old Street roundabout. In a past life, it had probably been part of an escape tunnel for the tube station, but more recently it had been a mobile phone shop owned by Grind founder David’s dad. When his father passed, David decided to call time on selling phones and turn it into the coffee shop the pair had long talked about.
The flat white hadn’t really arrived in London yet, but it was about to. At the time, Shoreditch was filling up with creative agencies and tech start-ups – all fuelled by coffee from Grind. Before long, Shoreditch Grind became a cocktail bar, too. Kaz, a DJ from Melbourne, who had helped David set up the Shoreditch sit, added a recording studio upstairs for friends and regulars to use when they were in town. Despite all the offers and questions, it was a few years before another Grind followed. First Soho Grind, then a handful of others across London. Each bigger than the last, they became proper restaurants – serving coffee, food and cocktails seven days a week. Today, Grind serves more than two million cups of coffee a year in its own stores, and 12 million more are made around the world by customers at home and across Soho Houses, using Grind coffee from our London roastery.
We open pretty early at Grind. Whether it’s coffee for cabbies on their way home, or bacon sandwiches for those on their way to work in the City, Grind – and London – comes alive early in the morning. Once the doors open, it doesn’t take long for a queue to appear. It’s usually builders in first, or people still out from the night before. Soon after, breakfast begins, with some of the same dishes you’ll find below. We have the music up louder than it should be, and by 9am we’ll have served hundreds of coffees, and smashed more than a few avocados.
The new book is a collection of recipes, stories and guides, written during lockdown – a time when we missed city living more than ever. Below, you’ll find some of our favourite recipes from a decade of serving coffee, food and cocktails across the capital.
Wild Mushroom Hash
The secret here is totally overdoing it on the salt and the butter. That said, to limit the damage, we’ve also included our recipe for mushroom ketchup. It’s much nicer than anything you get out of a bottle.
Heat two frying pans with a little butter. Fry your hash browns in one and your roughly sliced mushrooms and garlic in the other. Your mushrooms are going to reduce in size by about two thirds by the end of this.
One-Pan Gochujang Eggs
Our one-pan eggs have been on the menu in some form since the beginning. It’s changed a lot, starting as a shakshuka, then turning spicy with sausages and bacon. Today, it’s a lot lighter and simpler, with plenty of spinach – not that you’d know it. While the gochujang isn’t essential and can easily be substituted for chilli sauce, it’s a nice touch and you’ll find it in a lot of our recipes – it’s a sweet, spicy Korean paste made from fermented glutinous rice, but it’s got a lot more character than chilli sauce.
Sweet Potato Cakes With Harissa, Yoghurt & Eggs
This is one of our absolute favourites, and also the only dish you can find on the menu at any time of day. We serve it from as early as 6am to as late as midnight on some days, and will likely do so for years to come. Considering it’s not much more complicated than beans on toast once you’ve prepped the cakes themselves – which you can do in advance – it looks pretty impressive.
A Modern Guide To City Living is available to buy now.
Photography By Luke Albert.
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