Breakfast At The Cupola Visitor Centre And Kitchen, Stoney Middleton

Sunday 22 Dec 2024 by Sticky Beak
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Having washed under the large, waterfall shower and quenched our thirsts with a good cup of tea in our apartment, we took the short stroll back to The Cupola, crossing a babbling brook via the small wooden bridge that links the Rock Mill courtyard and the pavement. We were greeted like old friends and guided to the same booth table that we’d occupied the previous evening. Quick as a flash after our requests, a pot of tea appeared for me, swiftly followed by a Hot Chocolate [with actual Terry’s Orange syrup, no less!] for The Man. Breakfast is served 9am-Noon, and we got in nice and early as we’d got some walking planned.

Carrying on his streak of indulgence, The Man went for the Lords Cupola Breakfast/Full English, priced at £14. Having spied the Derbyshire Oatcakes on the menu, I had one loaded with Bacon, Mushroom and Tomato, £9; this isn’t technically on the menu, it’s a hybrid between the Bacon/Fried Egg or Sausage/Beans and the Mushroom/Tomato choices. You know me; never go for the simple choice! The oatcakes on both our plates, and His Nibs’ malted grain toast, and the thick slices of Bacon had been griddled, which gave them attractive ‘stripes’.

You can’t beat quality, farmhouse Bacon and Sausage and The Cupola team certainly don’t skimp on the produce they use; flavour was bursting out in every bite and nibble, whichever way you looked. There was sweet, savoury, earthy, punchy, subtle, soft and textural elements on our plates, and everything was as it should be. Hash Browns were golden and crisp on their outers, with soft inners; Fried Eggs were rich and creamy in taste with their yolks still runny; Beans were housed in a separate pot; Black Pudding was deep and satisfying, and the Sausage and Bacon both had a great chew time to them.

My Oatcake was the usual beguiling flavour mix of pancake-cum-crumpet (zhuzhed up by being griddled) and although I only had a trio of toppings, they certainly delivered in terms of breadth and depth of taste and texture. The halved Tomatoes had a scattering of fresh herbs on them and the flat Mushroom was glossed with a drizzle of Olive Oil. Like The Man, I was completely in love with the soft-yet-dense Bacon slices and they most definitely quelled the hunger pangs. What a way to break your fast and set yourself up for some scenic walking – Hot Wings given for this tasty, satisfying first meal of the day.

On our way out, we booked a table for lunch between 1.30-1.45pm and [half] jokingly said that if we hadn’t appeared by 2.30pm, to send a search party out for us! With Colin’s handy booklet in our hands, we donned our hats and headed out for an adventure on the combined purple and green routes that would take in Eyam and Stoney Middleton, and the terrain between the two…including ‘Black Harry Lane’ (allegedly where traders were robbed by a notorious Highwayman in bygone times), and the quarry used by a certain Mr Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible: Death Reckoning Pt 1 film for the dramatic train crash scenes.