Around London in 50 Breakfasts: Yoga Brunch at Haunt, Stoke Newington

Haunt is a new bar and kitchen concept shaking things up in Stoke Newington. The new space has already become a go-to hangout for those after of quality food, coffee, and drinks all day long and well into the night, and comes from a tight team of London events and promotion people who have years of experience between them. Every Saturday, Haunt offer a beautiful combination of yoga and brunch, with yoga set at £8 and 10% offered off any brunch selection. 

The yoga of choice is Vinyasa flow. Vinyasa flow yoga, according to our trainer Shireen, is the tuning of movement and breath. This one hour class combines a rejuvenating yoga sequence to energise your whole body, while also bringing awareness to our breath to help clear and relax the mind. The class took us through a fun flow of sun salutations, standing postures, balancing postures, seated postures, forward bends, back bends and twists. I can certainly attribute my clearer mindset and better posture throughout the day to Shireen's clearly instructed and beautifully made class. Even Alex, a total yoga novice, enjoyed himself and we are planning on visiting for the yoga class again. Priced at just £8, this is a real bargain for a small class. 

And moving onto brunch! As we had attended the yoga class we were offered 10% off our bill (even though the food was paid for by Haunt we covered our drinks bill). We began with some lovely coffee - me a cappuccino, Alex a flat white. Both were strong and creamy with just a hint of fruitiness which I am becoming quite a fan of with coffee. Besides the point of the taste, I was also obsessed with the mugs that our drinks came in. The black outside contrasted with the vibrant purple interior which I became a little infatuated with! If you have any idea where you can buy these at a reasonable price, let me know in the comments below. 

For food I chose the protein rich smoked salmon with poached eggs and avocado toast. Yum much!? I chose the fish option as I found the only veggie meal was an omelette (didn't fancy it), or plain eggs on toast (not very interesting for you readers). Its funny how since turning vegetarian I have found I have NO craving for meat, but I do still appreciate a good bit of fish. When it comes to that fish, however, I am quite strict on ensuring it is well sourced, preferably organic and definitely high quality. I can assure you that the salmon at Haunt is very tasty, well smoked with a great tearable texture and vibrant pink colour. 

The poached eggs too were great, trimmed and smooth to the finish. The vibrant orange yolk gave a much needed sauce for the dish and worked beautifully with the avocado toast and fresh side salad. Personally I hate frisee salad leaves but there you go - personal taste. 

Alex opted for the really exciting sounding dish of smoked duck with potato and bacon hashbrowns. This was served on a large salad (yay for greens) but we both agreed it would have been nicer to have another hash brown and less salad at breakfast. The duck was nicely smoked, not too strong, but was cold which was fine but unexpected. As the duck was cold Alex also didn't mind too much that it was not as pink as we would normally enjoy.

The hashbrown was laced with bacon flavour which brought plenty of saltiness and the texture was ultra-crispy. Apparently, these were the BEST HASH BROWNS EVER so yes, we would have liked more! Shame I can't eat this dish as Alex seems very chuffed.

Overall the brunch at Haunt was lovely and really complimented the yoga. It would have been lovely to see a few fresher options to work with the health benefits of the yoga class, but overall it was very enjoyable. Go visit Haunt if you are in Stoke Newington and look out for my review of the evening menu coming soon.

This meal was kindly paid for by the team at Haunt, however drinks were purchased by myself. 

Tweet to @elliemathews1