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Rini Hotel NotesA practical notebook of small hotels across Europe

Shelf V · Breakfast Notes

How to judge a hotel breakfast

A public five mark method for the European hotel breakfast: what each mark means, the price points that decide it and the alpine tables that set the pace.

Hotel breakfast table by a bright window with sliced bread on a board, boiled eggs in a cup, jam jars, coffee pot and a folded newspaper

Breakfast decides more hotel verdicts than the lobby ever will, so this shelf publishes the method instead of mysteries. The continental note sets out a five mark scale, bread to bill, that any reader can apply to any table in any city, together with the price points at which a hotel breakfast beats the corner cafe or loses to it.

The second note explains, structurally, why the alpine guesthouse table from Bohinj to the Pusteria valleys usually beats the capitals: guests who walk twelve kilometres before lunch get kitchens that answer. Neither note scores named houses; both give the reader the means to score them.

On this shelf

  1. Alpine guesthouse breakfast spread on a wooden table with dark bread sliced on a board, jars of red jam, soft boiled eggs, speck and a blue coffee pot by a mountain window

    Alpine guesthouse breakfasts: what the rate includes

    The best breakfast value on this site is structural, not sentimental: alpine houses include a real table in a EUR 90 to 120 room, because their guests walk twelve kilometres before lunch.

  2. Long hotel breakfast table in Vienna light with rolls in a basket, sliced ham and cheese on plates, boiled eggs, a coffee pot and a window open to the street

    The continental breakfast, graded: a five mark method

    Breakfast decides more bookings than lobbies do, so the scale is published rather than implied: five marks, plain definitions, and the price points where a hotel table beats the corner cafe or loses to it.

The neighbouring shelves, Where to Stay and Mountain Stays, work the same method from other angles, and the way every note is written is set out on the about page.