The Chelsea Hotel is located at 33 Gerrard St. E. at Yonge St. in Toronto's downtown core. Breakfast buffet is offered in the Elm Tavern. Mishy indicated that Chelsea has been offering this since possibly the 1980s by her memory. Coffee and juice are included.
Coffee was about the best we had since Douwe Egberts at Blue Heron. Mishy drinks it black/no sugar so knows good coffee. Bacon was excellent and we both loved it; was very well cooked and low in fat. There’s Pico de Gallo available to go with the scrambled eggs. Sauteed mushrooms were excellent and moreso than expected, beautifully seasoned. Pork sausage was excellent with no off or stale oil flavour that so many other places have. Buttermilk pancakes were excellent with cherry topping which is quite unique and works very well. Apple compote was delicious and I loved it.
Everything was perfect until this point but alas it was not to last... smoked salmon was available which is always welcome, although it was a little bit stale, just enough to notice in flavour but definitely more in appearance, as edges were browning. It's also nice that you can make your own (almost) Eggs Benedict because there's Hollandaise sauce there, but Missy said that it was lacking in zip, possibly as not enough lemon in it. Also the bagel was stale, Mishy described as “rock-hard.” Genoa sausage and prosciutto were both very good. Cheddar and Swiss from the charcuterie were both very good, as was the plain and black forest ham.
Small jar mueslix unfortunately had the milk pre-added, so it goes completely mushy and loses all its crunchy character. I've never seen it done this way as it's important to eat it just after the milk is added. Overnight oats did not suffer from this and were quite good. Bacon tater keg with beans was good though I preferred the tater keg to the beans. (Was it misspelled on the sign as “tarter”?) Custom egg station eggs-over-easy were very good with the included chipotle sauce. Vegan "yogurt" was repulsively like dusty ranch dressing; I don't know if that's the way it is everywhere but it certainly wasn't good here. Some added granola, honey and raisins made it somewhat tolerable. Oatmeal with its toppings was much more enjoyable. Weekend breakfast buffet was $33. This is a little more than I would expect but not enough to count, especially with the included coffee and juice, however this is more often than not the case for breakfast buffets. There were some excellent items, but a few shortcomings that weigh on the outcome.
Rating: 7 - 7.5 / 10 + 0 value adjustment (standard pricing) = 7 – 7.5 / 10
