Why hotel breakfast buffets are shrinking (and where to find the world’s best)

Among the many wonders that travel delivers, one of the most extravagant is the hotel breakfast buffet. Especially in upper crust Asian or Middle Eastern hotels, it’s a work of wonder with great variety. Cereals from bircher muesli to Coco Pops, a rainbow array of juices, a pastry display loaded with sticky treats, salad ingredients, rice dishes, four kinds of salad dressing, crunchy spring rolls and a selection of breads that runs from baguette to sourdough to pumpernickel.

Confronted with such abundance, indulgence is the key, whether you’re a health fanatic who breakfasts on a judicious serve of green leaves, bean sprouts, nuts and umeboshi plums and scattered with bonito flakes, or a multi-cultural grazer, loading up with a croissant, Japanese style smoked eel with kabayaki sauce, an apple Danish and a side serve of kimchee.

The buffet breakfast in a four-star hotel or better has long been theatrical. Buffets aren’t just about food and nutrition, they’re about choice, indulgence and psychological reinforcement. It’s a reminder that you’re away from home, and restraint is off the menu.

But change is in the air. In many hotels, and especially at the upper end, the breakfast buffet has been reimagined. The offerings are fewer and hot food is cooked to order. It’s not a revolution, but it is telling. In some quarters, the hotel breakfast buffet is being recalibrated.

Driving the change is an acknowledgement that breakfast buffets are hugely wasteful. Accor chief Sebastien Bazin has argued that the industry needs to rethink buffet-style dining due to the extraordinary amount of food it throws away, as the buffet generates more than twice the food waste of a la carte meals. Bazin has been outspoken about reducing buffets and moving toward more controlled, plated or hybrid formats.

Another factor is simple cost-cutting. Buffets are expensive to run well. They require staff, constant replenishment and acceptance of a high level of waste. For years, that was factored in. Guests expected it and hotels obliged. But as food and labour costs have climbed, particularly in Europe and Australia, the rationale for preparing large quantities of food that may not be eaten has become illogical.

COVID also played a part. Heightened hygiene concerns made shared food stations less appealing. When the pandemic subsided, many hotels discovered guests had become accustomed to smaller buffets and made-to-order breakfasts, and the slimline buffet selection stayed.

In some countries there is also a reputational payoff that comes with sustainability. A tray of congealing, uneaten sausages at the end of breakfast service is becoming hard for a hotel to justify. Guests notice, and hotel managers are acutely sensitive to negative social media posts. Smaller buffets, more frequent replenishment and dishes prepared to order all help address the problem, and the optics. To those who value small-footprint travel, empty plates reinforce the message that the hotel is making the right moves.

In many hotels the outcome is the rise of the hybrid breakfast. Cold items such as juices, fruit, pastries and cereals are still served buffet style, hot dishes are cooked to order. Instead of scrambled eggs sweating under heat lamps and chafing dishes filled with bacon, pale sausages, noodles and dim sum, the buffet has shrunk in many five-star hotels, the eggs and bacon are cooked to order, and your waiter is asking how you’d like your sourdough toasted. In boutique hotels this evolution has gone further still, with full a la carte breakfasts replacing the buffet altogether.

However, it’s not pervasive throughout the hotel industry. A lot depends on where you are in the world. The forces driving change such as sustainability, waste reduction and labour costs don’t apply everywhere. Crucially, the cultural status of the buffet varies enormously.

The trend is most pronounced in Europe. While the traditional European hotel buffet hasn’t gone away, many hotels are now focusing on personalised breakfast service, integrating wellness trends with locally sourced ingredients and moving dietary options like gluten-free and vegan from “special request” to standard buffet display.

In Asia, the sumptuous breakfast buffet is thriving and even expanding. The hotel breakfast plays a major role in travel, part of the appeal of a particular destination. It retains its cachet as a premium experience, with the option to snap some images to be uploaded to Instagram. In Hong Kong, buffets at major hotels win dining awards based on their lavish spreads and live cooking stations. In Japan, the buffet carries genuine prestige. Breakfast at a Japanese hotel often features an elaborate spread of both Western and traditional Japanese options.

The buffet is shrinking in the US, driven primarily by cost-cutting measures aimed at labour and food waste rather than a philosophical shift toward quality. Many mid-range chains have simplified or eliminated free breakfasts. The phenomenon accelerated during the pandemic, and some chains that paused breakfast never fully restored it.

In contrast, hotels in Gulf states with big tourism numbers have been expanding their breakfast offerings. There the buffet is linked with luxury positioning, and extravagance is a feature rather than a problem. International five-star brands tend to maintain grand spreads to meet guest expectations shaped by the local hospitality culture.

The hotel breakfast buffet reflects the cultures and economies it serves. Where sustainability and labour costs bite hard, restraint is becoming a virtue.

Where abundance signals prestige, the chafing dishes stay full and the patisserie station stays stocked with glistening treats. To many travellers, the mountain of food that once seemed generous now reads as wasteful, and that’s not a bad shift. The theatre of the buffet isn’t disappearing, it’s just developing a grown-up palate.

World’s best hotel breakfasts

A fabulous breakfast is a real treat. Way back in the 1970s, as backpackers on the hippie trail, my partner and I occasionally splashed out on breakfast in a posh hotel, which would cost us about five times the amount we paid for our hotel room the night before. It was a touch of fantasy and incredibly uplifting, worth every cent.

Even some of the world’s best hotels serve breakfast to non-guests. It’s an expensive start to the day. The main buffet at The Verandah in Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel costs $HK458 ($80) plus a service charge of 10 per cent, but it’s served with style and panache in gorgeous surroundings, and you’ll walk out feeling like a million dollars. Reserve ahead.

Mandarin Oriental Bangkok
Often cited as Asia’s benchmark breakfast, expect a vast buffet with Thai, Western and Japanese options as well as a la carte hot dishes and a riverside setting to sigh over. This is breakfast as a grand, civilised ritual.

Jumeirah Al Qasr, Dubai
This is the buffet as a culinary exhibition, with multiple live cooking stations featuring Middle Eastern, European and Asian spreads. Cost is high, but the quality is superb.

Hotel de Russie, Rome
Served at Le Jardin de Russie, either inside the belle epoque dining room or out, this is a glorious start to the day, with refined, seasonal produce on the menu as well as the traditional Italian favourites.

Le Bristol, Paris
Served either in Cafe Antonia or the Garden Court in fine weather, this is possibly the best patisserie selection of any hotel anywhere. Service is flawless, and you’ll feel like a movie star.

Park Hyatt Tokyo
The ambience is corporate, as is the clientele, and while the Japanese breakfast is everything you could wish for, anyone hankering for a Western breakfast is in heaven.

The Connaught, London
At this Mayfair hotel, the classic British breakfast is elevated to art and done flawlessly, served in the hushed, clubby atmosphere of the hotel’s swish Jean-Georges Restaurant.