In Lincoln we are spoilt for choice when it comes to enjoying a great breakfast! One of our favourite treats at weekends is to hit up one of our favourite cafés or greasy spoons for a fry up, or on special occasions go for a posh brunch. And there are plenty of options in between, whether you are on a health kick or you just want to begin the day with some proper Lincolnshire sausages. We’ve been on a mission to find the best breakfasts in Lincoln and document what we find, and in this article we share our recommendations.
As with many of our blog posts, this guide is an ongoing work in progress, and we will keep adding new ideas for breakfasts in Lincoln the more places we try. In each of our reviews we also include the opening times, so you’ll know where you can go if you’re out and about early.
Breakfasts in Lincoln: Cathedral Quarter
Uphill Lincoln is where you will find many of the city’s best independent restaurants and cafés, on the cobbled streets between the iconic landmarks of Lincoln Cathedral and Lincoln Castle. The Cathedral Quarter is a great area to come if you want to enjoy a top-notch breakfast in historical surroundings.
CASK Kitchen
If your idea of a perfect breakfast includes a satisfying cup of specialist coffee, then make sure you pay a visit to CASK Kitchen, run by Seven Districts Coffee. This local venture began in 2020 in nearby Welton, and we were excited to hear they had opened a coffee shop, bar and restaurant at one of our favourite locations in town.
You’ll see CASK Kitchen in the Bailgate area, at the site that was formerly The Terrace and Citadel. The venue has a beautiful secluded rooftop terrace with views of the cathedral and castle. It has a lovely, easy-going vibe that makes you feel at home whether you just want to pop in for a couple of drinks or for a full-on meal.
We tried out the breakfast at CASK Kitchen and loved it. The breakfast components are supplied locally, and the portion sizes are just right.
Look out for the impressive latte art as well! Our coffees came with swans, plants, and even a snowman crafted into the froth.
There’s a good variety on the brunch menu, including vegan options and some lighter plates. In addition to the full English we tried the avo & eggs, served on sourdough with chilli flakes, and added smoked salmon.
The plate was artistically presented, and most importantly it was delicious!
If you’re visiting the city for the first time, CASK Kitchen is a great option for breakfast in Lincoln at a prime uphill location with iconic views. The perfect place to begin a day out in Lincoln! It opens from 9am Monday to Saturday, and from 10am on Sundays
Cafe St. Paul’s
Cafe St Paul’s is one of Uphill Lincoln’s real hidden gems. It opened in late 2022 and it was a while before we noticed it ourselves, but we’re glad we did!
The entrance to this cosy, stylish café bar is on St Paul’s Lane, tucked away behind Bailgate. It has a downstairs seating area by the bar, but for us the highlight is the upstairs room and outdoor terrace area that looks directly onto the walls of Lincoln Castle.
Food is served for breakfast, lunch and dinner at Cafe St Paul’s, so we went along to try the morning offering. The breakfast menu has been expanded since our first visit. There is now a great range of options, including the classic “St Paul’s Breakfast”. Many of the breakfast options come with homemade crispy has browns, which are my favourite thing about this place.
There are some lighter breakfast options available, such bagels or paninis, but we chose to stick to basics and tried the full breakfast, with an extra portion of those hash browns each.
The sausages and bacon were full of rich flavour, which is no surprise given that the café is supplied by two of our favourite local butchers, Foster’s and Pepperdine’s. You can read about a taste test we did on their produce a couple of summers ago to try and find the best Lincolnshire sausages in Lincoln.
Everything else was cooked to perfection, and the portion sizes were just the right amount to fill us up – not a morsel too little or too much. But the real stars of the show were those crispy hash browns. Simply, wow! I told the serving team that they were the best hash browns I’d ever tasted, and I was not exaggerating. Don’t leave this place without trying some!
There’s a really friendly vibe at Cafe St Paul’s, and the owners and waiting staff are lovely people. We can’t wait to try their Sunday roasts next time.
Cafe St Paul’s is open for breakfast from 10am Wednesday to Monday.
Gigi’s Bar & Bistro
Perched right near the top of Steep Hill, Gigi’s Bar & Bistro is one of the newest restaurants on the scene in uphill Lincoln, opened in March 2024.
The location is fantastic as it’s right among the hustle and bustle of Steep Hill, but it still feels like a quiet escape. I popped in one sunny Saturday morning on a market day when there was also a festival on in the castle grounds around the corner, and it felt like a little oasis of calm.
The internal decor has a homespun charm to it, and brings out the historic ambiance of the building, with bright walls accentuating the sections of bare brick walls.
The food is the real star of the show here though. On the breakfast menu you’ll find plenty of classics, with traditional English breakfasts available in various sizes and with vegan or vegetarian options. For me it’s the selection of toasts that sets this place aside though, with sourdough and tiger bread provided by Lincoln-based Vine’s Bakery.
I tried “the Smavo”, which is a humongous pile of smashed avocado, red onion, poached eggs and chilli flakes on a thick wedge of toasted sourdough. I paid the extra for some halloumi, which was delicious and complemented the overall flavours beautifully. It was a struggle to finish it all, even for me!
Another great feature of the menu at Gigi’s is the refreshing smoothies. Along with my flat white, I tried the Caribbean smoothie, made with strawberry, pineapple and coconut, which was a welcome cool exotic punch after coming in from the hot sunshine.
Gigi’s is open from 9:30am seven days per week.
Breakfasts in Lincoln: Cornhill Quarter
Lincoln’s Cornhill Quarter has undergone major change in recent years after a hefty investment was injected into its redevelopment. This has seen the old Cornhill Exchange and its surroundings transformed into a thriving hub of trendy bars, restaurants, galleries, shops, and a new Everyman Cinema.
This is now one of our favourite places to hang out in the city centre, not least in the morning! Because it’s where you will find two of the best breakfasts in Lincoln that we’ve tried. Beginning with…
Cosy Club
Cosy Club is a great example of the restoration that has happened at the Cornhill Quarter. The historic building that was once part of the old Cornhill Exchange has been reimagined as a 1930s restaurant and bar. When you enter it’s a little bit like stepping back in time – in a good way.
The restaurant is set in a vast upstairs hall with high beams, hanging lights and sunshine streaming in through skylights above. Immense care been taken to be respectful to the building’s old features, and in the decorations on the walls you can also see the footprint of Lincoln’s industrial history in portraits and decades-old advertisements.
The breakfast menu at Cosy Club is varied and extensive. There are variations on the classic English breakfast, with all the usual features plus special quirks like sourdough toast, spicy ham hock beans and ham rostis, depending on which option you choose.
For something slightly lighter but still filling, you can try the likes of bubble and squeak, huevos rancheros, shakshuka, buttermilk pancakes or ham hock hash.
I am always drawn towards hash whenever I see it on the menu, so naturally I tried the ham hock hash, which was served with a delicious breakfast gravy. It really hit the spot! Meanwhile, Lisa went for the classic breakfast. You really can’t go wrong with this, and we must give a special shoutout to the crispy hash browns.
There is also an interesting selection of drinks to accompany your breakfast at Cosy Club. On a hot day we tried some house coolers – the morning cooler, with lemon, elderflower and mint, and a pink lemonade. These were beautifully refreshing and a nice balance to our coffees.
Cosy Club opens at 9am, seven days a week.
The Botanist
Another of our favourites in the redeveloped Cornhill Quarter is the Botanist, which first opened its doors in mid 2020. It took us a while to check this place out with our plans disrupted by the ongoing pandemic, but it was worth the wait!
The Botanist is almost like a secret indoor garden within the city, which serves innovative dishes and is famed for its botanical-themed cocktails. The interior is hung with all sorts of plants and botanical decorations, which gives it a calming vibe even when it’s busy.
The tables at the Botanist are really nicely spaced out, and if you sit upstairs by the large windows or outside on the terrace you can enjoy your food with a lovely view over the Cornhill Quarter.
When Lisa’s best friends came to stay in Lincoln for the weekend, she took them to the Botanist to try their popular bottomless brunch. I had serious FOMO seeing their pictures of the amazing food, and they couldn’t speak highly enough of the experience!
The way the brunch works is that you choose one item from five different sections of the menu. One of our friends has allergies, and the staff were very considerate and understanding in allowing items to be swapped from different parts of the menu to suit her dietary requirements.
As with a typical bottomless brunch, for the set price you can keep ordering prosecco and spritzes to accompany the delicious food. Lisa and our friends had their dishes served on various appetising platters so they could share it among them, while enjoying the views and the chill vibes of a band playing downstairs.
The Botanist also now serves a regular brunch menu without needing to get the bottomless package. You can choose from the likes of ham hock or smoked trout eggs benedict, bircher muesli, buttermilk fried chicken waffles, and much more.
Doors open at the Botanist at 9am, seven days per week. We’re also working on a separate article compiling the best brunches in Lincoln, which will feature the Botanist too, so keep an eye out for that soon!
Breakfasts in Lincoln: around the High Street
As the main thoroughfare in the city centre, Lincoln High Street is a hive of activity for shopping and daytime dining. But it’s not just wall-to-wall chain establishments like you will find in some cities. In between high street brands you will also find an array of interesting local businesses, including several where you can enjoy a tasty breakfast.
Madame Waffle
For a breakfast with character and a sweet twist, Madame Waffle on the High Street is a place you must try. If you hadn’t guessed it already from the name, it is an establishment that specialises in dishes based on Belgian waffles.
There are savoury and sweet waffles for any mood or any time of day. And the breakfast waffles are not time limited – you can enjoy them in the afternoon too if you want.
We like to eat down in the basement area of Madame Waffle if we can get a table there. Towards the back it protrudes into the old city vaults under a bricked archway, bringing a rustic ambiance to the place.
Old pipeworks visible on the walls add to this vibe, along with photos of historic characters hung on the walls. The owners have made really creative and optimal use of the space to give it character.
I had the classic Madame Waffle breakfast, while Lisa went for a croque madame waffle with smoked salmon. The presentation is all part of the experience, and the taste is great too, especially the waffles!
Madame Waffle roast their own beans on site, which is evident in the quality of the coffee. When we noticed a Vietnamese-style coffee on the menu we had to try that too – which has a strong and sweet flavour profile – along with a regular flat white.
Madame Waffle is open from 9am Wednesday to Saturday, and from 10am on Sundays.
Jenny’s Café
Somewhere we can always count on getting a filling fry-up in the middle of town is Jenny’s Café, situated on Saltergate just a few paces away from the historic Guildhall and Stonebow building.
If you are ever in the city centre super early and feeling hungry, this might just be the only place you will find serving food. It opens its doors at 7am, except on Sundays when it opens at 8am. The café typically starts to get busy at 9am. I like to come in earlier when it’s a bit quieter and have a chat with the staff.
Jenny’s Café has been around in Lincoln for years, and there is now a chain of them in various locations around the country. There’s even one down the road in Newark, where I grew up, right next to where I went to school.
The formula is simple and you can see why it’s popular. Large all day breakfasts are cheap and cheerful (the cheapest breakfast we’ve found anywhere in town), and you select from various combinations to get just the right amount of each item you want, or add extras. I like the ‘hale and hearty’, which is a bit cheaper and comes with sautéed potatoes.
Jenny’s has that classic diner feel. Wooden tables and chairs are arranged neatly, and you can see the food being prepared and cooked out the back, sizzling away.
As well as all-day breakfasts you can get burgers, omelettes, steaks and scampi. And, different to other breakfast joints in town, you can also get a tasty milkshake to go with it. What’s not to love when you just need a calorific treat?
Churchills
Churchills of Lincoln has been a fixture on the High Street for nearly a decade. As a daytime restaurant it opens from 8am to 5pm throughout the week, so you can head here bright and early for your fill of breakfast.
Breakfast is the speciality at Churchills, and the prices are among the cheapest that we’ve found so central in town.
I was in the mood for a lighter bite on my last visit to Churchills, so I had a smoked salmon and avocado bagel. The portions are generous, especially for the price, and in our experience the service is always friendly.
There are more early morning classics on the menu, such as eggs royale, scotch pancakes and mackerel breakfast. And you can wash it down with a freshly ground home blend coffee.
So, if you’re looking for a quick, easy and satisfying breakfast in the middle of Lincoln, Churchills fits the bill.
Stokes To Go
Stokes High Bridge Café is more than just a great place to eat – it’s also one of Lincoln’s historical landmarks. It stands on High Bridge, which is the oldest bridge in the UK to still have buildings on it. You can’t miss the 14th-century building as you walk up the High Street with its brilliant white facade and black wooden beams.
Stokes Coffee has been operating in the building for 85 years, making it one of the oldest coffee houses in Lincoln. After recently purchasing the shop on the right-hand side, it now owns the whole building, and has used this part of the space to open a new takeaway breakfast offering – Stokes To Go.
We went along to Stokes To Go to check it out. You can buy various breakfast goodies to take away, or dine in the atmospheric room upstairs, with cosy booths, hanging lights and old wooden beams.
This part of the building had previously been used by the Proper Pasty Co, and Stokes has struck an arrangement with them to keep serving their popular pasties from the premises. Naturally, we tried out the breakfast pasty. It was piping hot, packed generously with filling, and full of flavour.
We love the range of coffees at Stokes too, which is a big reason behind their popularity. As well as roasting their own beans in the city, they’re always experimenting with different blends and flavours. We tried a hazelnut coffee, which was delicious.
Stokes To Go opens bright and early at 8am Monday to Saturday, and 10am on Sundays. It’s perfect for picking up a tasty morning snack to eat on the go while exploring the city, or enjoying the surroundings of one of our city’s most famous buildings.
The Bread Vault
If you take a short detour from Lincoln High Street and walk out to where St Swithin’s Square meets Broadgate – about a three-minute walk from the Guildhall – you will find The Bread Vault, a homely café on the corner.
This is one of Lincoln’s newest cafés, opened in October 2023 by the husband, wife and son team of Oratios (Ory), Amanda and Harry. You can definitely feel the family-run charm when you stop by here, and it’s a lovely place to start your day, or take a a coffee break away from the hustle and bustle of the High Street.
Ory’s main passion is for baking, which is a real speciality at The Bread Vault, hence the name. He and the team bake fantastic fresh cakes, pastries and breads, which you will see neatly arranged in a cabinet inside.
The breakfast menu at The Bread Vault is classic and non-pretentious; a choice of a large or regular full English, scrambled or poached eggs on toast, or omelettes. Breakfast rolls are also available if you want something on the go.
One thing you can always be sure of here is that the toast or rolls will be outstanding, fresh from the bakery!
I tried a regular English breakfast, and it was exactly what I needed to start the day. A plate full of food to the brim, with thick, flavoursome bacon, a tasty Lincolnshire sausage, and everything else cooked just how I like it.
If you visit The Bread Vault during the daytime, you can try some of their pinsa pizzas, pies or sandwiches with a dash of Mediterranean influence.
The Bread Vault is open from 8am from Monday to Saturday, and from 8:30am on Sundays.
Breakfasts near Lincoln (within 10 minutes’ drive)
Lincoln is a small city, and as you travel outwards, busy streets soon give way to quaint little villages as you get into the countryside. We love exploring these surrounding villages and finding the many gems among them for eating out. Lately, we’ve been looking out for places to enjoy a cosy village breakfast, and other gems around the town’s outskirts.
Homestead, Bracebridge Heath
Set in a gorgeous grade II listed building in the historic Roman village of Bracebridge Heath, just a couple of miles south of Lincoln, Homestead has become one of our go-to pubs at weekends.
We first tried it for lunch because it ticks a lot of boxes for us, especially that it’s dog friendly, and we can even walk there from our home down the River Witham and up the fields from the south side of Lincoln. As you get to the top of the hill at Bracebridge Heath there are some lovely views across Lincolnshire.
We discovered that the pub, which is part of the Chef and Brewer chain, opens early on weekends (9:30am), and serves a brunch with a range of breakfast dishes and the option to add alcoholic drinks. I headed out early with the dog one Saturday to check it out while Lisa was away on a trip.
The food at Homestead is excellent value. No breakfast dish will break the bank, and there is a great range of options. I was in the mood for a full English breakfast, but the menu also includes the likes of smashed avocado and poached egg, beef rib hash, baked berry oats, and a ‘sundae brunch’ stacked with granola, curd, berries and Greek yoghurt.
The quality of the breakfast was just as good as we had come to expect from the food at Homestead. The use of streaky bacon was a bit of a quirk, and it was cooked nice and crispy just to my liking.
Homestead gets extra marks for going above and beyond on dog friendliness. As you enter the building there is a ‘dog station’ where you can fill up a bowl of water and get some treats. It’s also clearly a place where the staff love dogs and will give your furry friends a lot of attention.
Inside the tables are really nicely spaced out, which is great for a long stretchy dog like our boy Regan. I even ordered him a sausage, and the waitress cut it up for him and brought it over in a little bowl. Now he gets immediately excited whenever we arrive back at Homestead!
Damon’s
Anyone who grew up in Lincoln will be familiar with Damon’s, the American-style diner on Lincoln’s western bypass. As kids we always came here for birthday meals, as you get to eat for free on your special day! We’ll always have a nostalgic soft spot for the place.
Damon’s is best known for its colossal rib racks and combo platters, but it also opens early for breakfast – 7am on weekdays and 8am on weekends. The American breakfast menu is unashamedly decadent, with pancake stacks, New York steaks and giant French toast the order of the day.
We had a family breakfast at Damon’s when Lisa’s sister, brother-in-law and kids came to visit. Damon’s is particularly good for fun meals out with children – they’ll love the menu, and there’s plenty of entertainment on hand as well.
You can order classic fried breakfasts from miniature right up to deluxe – the latter involving four sausages and three bacon rashers! – and each comes with a mountain of extras, plus tea or coffee.
I went a bit left-field and ordered the corned beef hash, something I’m particularly partial to. I’ll often order it any time of day if I see it on a menu, but I hadn’t tried it for breakfast before! It was super satisfying, and the Damon’s approach to portioning meant I was going to be well fed.
The herby potatoes were an unexpected highlight of both mine and Lisa’s breakfasts at Damon’s. You can get them plain or mixed, the latter meaning they’re jumbled up with bacon and onions, so of course I chose that option. They’re lathered with a tangy hit of curry sauce, which really hits the spot.
Pretty much everyone in our group ordered something different, the table overflowing with pancakes, French toast and general mounds of bacon, eggs, sausages and potatoes. Nobody left hungry!
If you are looking for somewhere to eat breakfast in a big group, or you just want that indulgent fix to start the day, Damon’s will sort you out.
Map of breakfasts in Lincoln
You can locate the restaurants and cafés serving breakfast in Lincoln that are featured in this article by clicking on the map below:
Do you have some recommendations on the best breakfasts in Lincoln? Please feel free to share them in the comments below.
See our guide to the best things to do in Lincoln for more inspiration on activities in the city.
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