Is brunch still the new breakfast? It certainly remains the most Instagrammable meal of the day.
Rise clearly understand this. They also recognise that a palette of pastels and pinks will only get you so far amongst the influencer crowd, if your menu doesn’t cut the mustard.
It’s an all-day brunch venue that often has crowds queuing down the street. That’s saying something given they are located opposite a large, warm and welcoming looking Cozy Club and are only a couple of doors down from what looks like another decent coffee and breakfast place.
The cold weather, post-Christmas lull, and imminent return to work and school, meant we managed to avoid this fate last Sunday morning, managing to grab a pew in this church of brunch.
While we didn’t worship, I did have a transcendental moment, when I tried the lucid green potato hash I was presented with.
But all good breakfasts start with coffee, and I am pleased to say their flat white game is strong. As is their freshly squeezed orange juice. Both told me my breakfast would not disappoint.
I plumped for their take on the breakfast bap. Their take means you get a sausage patty alongside your bacon and soft scrambled eggs. Chilli jam and cheddar complete things before they’re all squeezed into a warm, soft roll.
Charlotte tried their special of savoury french toast, which was a decadent combination of eggy brioche, glazed pancetta, poached eggs, garlic stuffed mushroom and mustard cream. If it sounds like too many flavours, you’d be wrong. If you think it sounds extreme, you’d be bang right.
Let the records note that glazed pancetta might be the best pork product available.
And what about the potato hash? The menu offers confit onions, parsley mayo and parmesan. And maybe that’s all there was in the dish along with the warm, skin-on new potatoes, but if that’s the case, then the magic really is in the sum of its parts. Sunshine in a bowl, as the phrase doesn’t go.
So that was Rise. A brunch venue like no other. Despite appearances. I apologise for ever doubting you as I crossed the threshold. For you are a sight and taste to behold.
Rise isn’t really a chain place, but the owners do have roots, and another couple of venues, in Preston.
The only man in the room 