Listen; everyone deserves a break from the Bran Flakes every now and then.

Just because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, doesn’t mean it can’t be the craziest, the naughtiest or the most fun.

Meeting your mates for breakfast is the new dinner and cocktails. If it’s the weekend you can even keep the cocktails, provided you refer to them as ‘mimosas’ and ‘Bloody Mary’s’ and you get the bus home.

Here are five plates of pure, unadulterated joy to order in Cork…

1. The French toast at Ali’s Kitchen

This cosy Paul Street café is always bustling on weekend mornings. That’s because their brekkie/brunch menu is outrageously delicious and packed with things that would make your Slimming World leader fall down in a weakness.

Top of the list for us is the French toast du jour – every weekend brings a new topping, from ‘rhubarb and custard’ to ‘lime curd and coconut’ to this one; brioche with poached nectarines, vanilla cream, blueberries and shortbread crumble. Opening hours here.

2. The Bloody Mary at The Sextant

With tomato juice, vodka, Worcester sauce, hot sauces, lime juice, green and black olives, celery and a wheat straw, the Sextant’s Bloody Mary is not for the faint hearted.

It is, however, almost guaranteed to make you feel a million dollars when you woke up feeling like eight bucks.

3. The pancakes at The Spitjack

Their homemade buttermilk pancakes come with cinnamon, apple and maple syrup, but if you’re feeling extra (or just extra hungover) you can add in bacon, white chocolate, biscuit crumble, marshmallows and a giant dollop of fresh cream.

The only reasonable thing to do afterwards is to go back to bed.

Opening hours here. 

4. The Breakfast Pizza at Brick Lane

Sometimes only a breakfast pizza will do. When you wake up with that kind of craving, there’s only one place for you; Brick Lane.

Sit down, order a coffee or a cure and this South Main Street spot will present you with a fry-up like Mama would have made had she been from Cork.

Expect bacon, friend eggs, black and white pudding, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. Opening hours here.

5. The Insanity Waffle at Salt

Don’t arrive at this Victoria Road spot without an appetite.

You must come prepared to devour their homemade Belgian brunch waffle, served with banana, a huge mound of fresh chantilly cream, chocolate sauce and crunchy almond flakes. Opening hours here. 

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