Review: The Curious Kitchen, Brixham

If you are ever down in Brixham, I recommend The Curious Kitchen for breakfast, brunch or lunch. And I think they open some evenings too. Brixham is one of those lovely south-west old fishing towns, hidden in a cove with little streets full of narrow houses clambering up steep-sided valleys of woods and fields. The harbour is full of bobbing boats and there’s a lot of history to explore.

Anyway, first thing about the Curious Kitchen: they make a very good coffee, our flat whites were up with some of the better cafes in London, full flavoured and strong but balanced enough to need no sugar. Then we had brunch. Maureen’s French toast was marvellous, built on their own brioche from their bakery around the corner and with nicely buttery-caramelised edges, plenty of cinnamon and served with a generous handful of good streaky bacon rashers. I went for the pork benedict, another wildly generous plate compared with some of the abstemious one egg benedicts I find in London. But more importantly the eggs were perfectly poached and the hollondaise was a classic slightly sharp lemony-yellow and generously poured. They had chosen their own foccacia as the base, and this was a lovely soft and springy bread with oodles of bubbles to capture yolk and sauce – inspired idea. Oh yes, and it was a pork benedict. So I also had a slide of rolled slow-roasted pork belly with my eggs. Definitely more lunch than brunch (for me, at least) and very good indeed.

We came back on Tuesday morning, so impressed that we were greedy to try some of the other items on the menu, but alas they don’t open on Tuesday (at least, not in February). Our brunch items were £12 and £14, great value.