Brekking the bank: Cost of full English breakfasts soars up to £25 despite falling ingredient prices

A lobster was only £13 more than a fry up at one upmarket restaurant

(iStock)

There's something about an English breakfast that is becoming increasingly hard to swallow - the soaring price.

The average cost of a traditional plate of sausage, beans, grilled tomatoes, eggs, mushrooms, black pudding and a few rashers of bacon has risen to £25.54 in fine-dining establishments surveyed by The Times.

At the weekend their food columnist Giles Coren railed against a breakfast he was served at a five-star Oxford hotel, which cost £21.50 and featured one sausage, one bacon rasher, and a few other sad looking accompaniments.

The spike comes despite the fact that the cost of the ingredients which make up a full English have dropped by a third since 2010, according to the Financial Times breakfast index.

A full English breakfast at the Dorchester hotel, for instance, costs £34, only a pound more than the grilled organic suckling pig on the dinner menu.

Meanwhile at the Ritz, there is only a £13 difference between the lobster and a fry up.

Since 2010, the average cost of a breakfast has climbed by 13 per cent, according to a Horizon trends report, which pinned the blame on the growing brunch craze.

The latest figures suggest that there has been a 16 per cent rise in people eating out for their first meal on the weekend, compared with 11 per cent and 6 per cent for lunch and dinner respectively.

Research by purchasing services company Beacon also noted a five per cent rise in people eating out in the morning, with an average of £76m being spent on breakfast a day, The Telegraph reported.

A third of people now buy their breakfasts outside the home. A quarter of those surveyed do so out of convenience, but just under half see eating breakfast out as a weekend treat.