It’s mid February now, which means brunch season is fast approaching. While the cold weather still remains restaurants are now stocking up on steel wine coolers to keep the flowing bubbles chilled.

It’s our first brunch of the year, Brunch Paradiso at Rake’s Café Bar. Located in Andaz Hotel at Liverpool Street the jazzy café is serving bottomless brunch every Saturday with Ibiza tunes played by guest DJs.

The bar itself takes inspiration from the 1733 fictional tale of Tom Rakewell, famously depicted in William Hogarth’s eight-part painting series, A Rake’s Progress.

The narrative follows Tom’s journey from inherited fortune to eventual downfall, with the final scene set in Bethlem Hospital—now the location of Rake’s Café Bar and Andaz London.

The bar consists of two rooms – a bright window filled room with high chairs and the DJ, and quieter plush chairs room at the back. A large hen-do party is enjoying the Balearics beats at the front room while we head to the latter.

The brunch offering is rather generous £45 gets you one main and a dessert plus a choice of bottomless cocktails on tap or prosecco.

Or £80  for bottomless Moët & Chandon Brut. A pretty good deal, as far as bottomless champagne brunches go I’d say £80 is a hard to beat deal in London.

For mains it’s all the standard classics such as eggs benedict, dirty waffle, and even the recently popular Middle Eastern breakfast dish shakshuka. There is an option for egg add-ons and something more lunch like – burgers.

Today we’re both in the mood for something carbs and meat rich – burgers. A buttermilk panko crumb chicken burger for my guest and the perfect pairing for myself Hangover Burger since I’m a bit tired after the night out.

With fried egg, bacon, hash browns, sausage and the beef patty of course, it’s English breakfast in a bun. Ticking all the boxes for a Saturday brunch.

Is it light? No, opposite of that, it’s juicy, messy, rich and carby, exactly what I wanted.

It’s served with perfectly fried skin on fries, even the condiments don’t disappoint Heinz mayo and Tiptree ketchup presented in the mini glass jars. This is where I’m reminded it’s a hotel bar, the mini glass condiments always reminded me of room service.

Not the most environmentally friendly choice I know but I just have a soft spot for the cute tiny glass jars. And Tiptree makes a suburb ketchup, some might argue.

The Hangerover Burger is also fairly good with juicy patty the mince is not as chunky as I prefer but rather more on the finely grinded side but still juicy and flavorsome.

The bun, which I always pay close attention to, holds the shape well even half way through and weight of burger filling, it hasn’t turned into a pancake like many buns would by now.

My guest’s buttermilk comes in the same quality bun filled with all the burger classics like lettuce, tomato and chipotle mayo for a bit of spice. The chicken is chunky and very juicy.

To complete the brunch we just about have a bit of space left for dessert. Going with the current cheesecake trend Rake’s Café has a basque cheesecake on the menu.

It’s served with served with crunchy pistachio crumbs and infused with rose.

Sadly it’s not as basque aka runny inside as I hoped it’ll be but it’s satisfying enough flavour wise, with creamy and rich tones just missing that right texture.

Although we went for Moet as our main drink, for research purposes I tried the cocktails on tap.

The staff told us the the diners can switch the bottomless drinks and fizz at any time throughout the brunch so one doesn’t have to stay with one flavour.

The Pear White Tea fizz with natural subtle pear notes is particularly good, it tastes like a summer breeze. Tommy’s Spicy Margarita is also good with a decent spice kick to it.

With being more City than Shoreditch I think Saturdays make Rake’s Café Bar a less busy location.

Contrary to it’s weekly evenings when the bar is buzzing with standing City visitors. I was here a few weeks ago on Thursday.

So it’s an under discovered gem on Saturdays for those looking for quality dishes, fine service and good value for money. If the Shoreditch avocado focused crowd knew about it there won’t be a weekend booking left for summer.

Rake’s Cafe Bar, 40 Liverpool St, City of London, London EC2M 7QN