There's nothing quite like the smell of breakfast drifting up the stairs of a seaside guesthouse. For years, that smell meant one thing: bacon, sausage, eggs and a pot of tea. But the guests who come through our door in Hornsea are a varied lot, and a growing number of them eat either vegetarian or vegan food — some for ethical reasons, some for health, some simply because it suits them. What we've learned is that nobody books a room and wants to start the day picking at a slice of dry toast while everyone else tucks in.
So we don't treat plant-based breakfasts as an afterthought. We treat them as a proper menu in their own right, planned in advance, cooked with care, and served with the same warmth as the full English. Here's how it works in practice if you're staying with us.
Vegetarian guests are the easiest to please, because most of the traditional breakfast components already work beautifully. Eggs from a nearby farm, grilled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, baked beans, hash browns, toast and plenty of tea or coffee. The swap is straightforward: out come the meat sausages, in go good-quality vegetarian ones, cooked in a separate pan and on a dedicated tray so nothing mingles.
We also like to add something a bit more interesting than a token veggie option. Depending on the season, you might find:
One thing worth knowing: not all cheese is vegetarian. Traditional Cheddar and Parmesan are often made with animal rennet, so we always buy cheese specifically labelled as vegetarian. It costs a little more, but a vegetarian breakfast should actually be vegetarian.
The mistake people make with vegan breakfasts is thinking small — a bit of fruit and a black coffee. That's a snack, not a start to a day of walking the promenade. A proper vegan breakfast needs protein, some fat, and something warm and substantial.
Our vegan cooked breakfast usually includes plant-based sausages, smoked tofu scrambled with turmeric and a pinch of black salt (which gives that faintly eggy flavour), grilled tomatoes, mushrooms cooked in olive oil, baked beans, hash browns and toast spread with a dairy-free margarine. It's a full plate, and guests regularly tell us they didn't need lunch afterwards.
For those who'd rather not have a big cooked meal, we keep these on hand:
This is where most breakfasts fall down, and it's rarely the cooking. It's the margarine spread on your toast that turns out to be butter. It's the cereal that contains honey or vitamin D3 from lanolin. It's the marmalade that's been set with gelatine. It's the shared toaster that's just had a cheese toastie in it.
So we're fussy. We keep a separate tub of dairy-free spread, clearly labelled and never used for anything else. We keep a second toaster, or use toaster bags, which also solves the problem for guests who avoid gluten. We read labels properly — bread, beans, hash browns, cereal, jam, hot chocolate and even some crisps can all hide milk powder, butter or honey. We use a different frying pan and a different set of tongs for plant-based cooking, and we don't fry vegetarian sausages in the same oil as meat ones.
Plant milks are always in the fridge: oat, soya and almond, plus a dairy-free hot chocolate for anyone who wants something warming without the milk.
The single most helpful thing you can do is mention your dietary needs when you book, or at least the night before. There's no charge and no awkwardness. It simply means we can shop properly rather than improvising with whatever's in the cupboard.
We ask guests to jot down their preferences on the order slip the evening before — which sausages, how you like your tofu, whether you'd prefer porridge or a cooked plate, and whether you take oat, soya or almond milk in your tea. It takes two minutes and means your breakfast arrives exactly as you want it, hot and on time, rather than being sorted out while everyone else is eating.
Whether you're heading along the promenade, wandering out to the mere, or just pottering around the town before heading home, breakfast matters. Nobody wants to be hungry by eleven o'clock. A vegetarian or vegan breakfast should leave you full, satisfied and genuinely looking forward to the next morning — not quietly wondering whether you'll get a decent meal later.
If you eat plant-based and you're used to being the awkward one at the table, you won't be here. Just tell us what you need, and we'll have it ready.
Hornsea Bed & Breakfast shares practical, down-to-earth guidance on seaside bed and breakfast in hornsea, east yorkshire for readers across the UK.
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