I probably like the cooked to order menu service at the Park Hyatt Maldives and room service at the Andaz 5th Avenue more. The highest quality ingredients I’ve had for breakfast were probably at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris.
And the buffet (which I understand is no longer as good) that I had at the Le Meridien Chiang Rai several years ago was probably better as well — it wasn’t more extensive, but there were more and more interesting things that would be brought around by servers for you to try over the course of a meal that weren’t on the menu. (The most extensive buffet title probably belongs to one of the many top end hotels in Kuala Lumpur.)
But I imagine that the breakfast buffet at the St. Regis Bali is the most flashy. In fact, it would be hard to beat in that category by any hotel, anywhere.
Lobster, caviar, and foie gras
There’s a caviar service that you can order, and of course you can order it as many times as you wish.
You can have seared foie gras with your eggs.
And they offer lobster two ways:
Not to mention sashimi:
.. as well as oysters and wagyu beef tenderloin.
This wasn’t the best caviar I’ve ever eaten, though I didn’t ask them what kind was on offer. The portions were small as well. You don’t get much wagyu beef, either, though of course you can ask for more. No doubt portions are a cost control mechanism.
Menu Service and a Buffet
When you come up the stairs to the lobby level of the main building which houses the restaurant, you’ll walk through the buffet and can be seated indoors (very cold air conditioning, noisy acoustics) or outdoors.
Once seated you’re presented with a menu that you can order from in addition to having all of the items on the buffet.
In addition to the ‘premium’ items I tried the dim sum, which was disappointing.
The buffet has all of the items you’d expect.
However, service isn’t very good
This is strange, because universally across the hotel service is exceptionally good, even by Bali standards which assumes that service is good.
They do get busy. Every guest at the St. Regis Bali gets complimentary breakfast — regardless of loyalty program status or room rate. So a general member staying in an entry level room (suite) gets breakfast included.
That means that even though the hotel has only 123 suites and villas, that breakfast really fills up when the hotel is at the upper ends of its occupancy.
I can’t pin the problem on occupancy, though. Even midweek service is forgetful. Staff either don’t bring what they’ve promised or take a long time to do so, and frequently get requests (like what you take with your coffee) wrong. The problem is simply exacerbated when they’re busy.
As a result I do not think that the St. Regis Bali offers the ‘best’ breakfast. But I do think they offer the most ‘over the top’ breakfast.
What’s the best hotel breakfast you’ve had?
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Wow I feel like I stayed at a different St. Regis Bali this past February- maybe it was due to being off season and only 50% occupied. Service was amazing, overboard and almost uncomfortable so many people waited on us, knew our names and what we liked. I agree the dim sum was disappointing, but the sashimi and other items were fantastic.
Service was very creapy. If you even mentioned one thing, it was like they wrote it down and repeated it back to you everyday. By the 3rd day the food got old very fast. And the food was weird, some kind of foo foo interpretation of what Eggs Benedict was supposed to be. And the staff was constantly walking by your table badgering you to try something off of their trays. Seats were too low for the tables, like mismatched furniture. And hell would freeze over before you would get a coffee refill.
I would say it is not the best breakfast in the world.
We’ll be there in November…looking forward to the decadence.
I have a forthcoming trip to Bali, but will be staying for several weeks at a small guest house not far from the St. Regis. Do you know whether the breakfast buffet is available for people not staying at the hotel and how much it would cost? Other than that, I’d welcome any restaurant recommendations in Bali, particularly around the locations of the St. Regis and W.Thanks!
@Stuart Falk – great question, I imagine you could go to the St Regis for the buffet but I would email the hotel (Stregis.bali@stregis.com) and ask. I’d recommend Mozaic in Ubud for dinner (not near either hotel), see my food trip report from 2008 using the navigation in the left hand column of the blog or search ‘mozaic’.
I have been lucky enough to stay at the St Regis Bali 3 times and still regard it as my favorite hotel overall, including breakfast. The staff is very friendly and always bringing different things around for you to try. Some people may find this annoying, but all you have to say is “No Thank You”. Order room service if you don’t want to be offered delicious food and drinks.
We LOVE the french toast croissant roll with cinnamon butter! It may not be the best ingredients ever, but the environment and wide selection of food makes it our favorite. You can order anything off the menu, go to the buffet AND try dishes that they bring around.
I have been to all the other hotels in the first paragraph (except PH Maldives which we’re going to in November) and I still would rank St Regis Bali at the top.
Have to admit that it would be hard to beat ‘caviar service’, but I would almost match that with the fresh crepe station at the Ritz Carlton in Berlin. The W Hong Kong also has an amazing breakfast buffet spread.
I was @ the St. Regis at the same time as Mr. Pickles. The breakfast was really good IMHO. Service was great, food tasty, and the selection was good. Best breakfast in the world is a stretch. By all means, go to the SRB, you will love it for all that it is, including a great breakfast..
Who would want caviar and lobster for breakfast anyway?
I know I don’t.
I got married here. Service “can” be slow, but its Bali…what’s your rush? The french toast is simply amazing…or what my partner would say “a little piece of heaven.” The wait staff here, and really the entire resort, is simply AMAZING. Can’t imagine a better place to get married. Did you meet Carlos, the regional St. Regis Butler leader? Amazing fella if you ask me…
I have a room booked on points scheduled for August 2015. I was just informed by the hotel that breakfast is no longer included. It is now 450,000 IDR per person. I’m seriously considering canceling my reservation.
After 5 days of delicious breakfast at St Regis Bali, and 6 months later, I still remember almost everything that me and my family enjoyed. For those of us with a palate that likes spices, this is probably the best in the world! The lobster omlette was so good we had to ate it every day – makes for a memorable pairing of seafood, gentle spice, and eggs! The dim sum (har gao or shrimp) was freshly made and very memorable – beats the best in any Chinatown I’ve been to. The fruits were delicous – mangoes as good as the best in the world (those would be bangenpalle), along with Bali unique selak, rambutans, sapota, etc. The Balinese food, if anything, was a bit on the light side – there were selections, but you could not find 10 different kinds of sambals (among the 200+ that exist), or krepuks of various kinds. The service was exceptional in my mind – one of the leads there heard my wife inquire about a sweet coconut/black-rice pudding, and that was made available to us the next day! Nowhere on earth are you likely to find that level of service.