On one of our first mornings in Barbados, I was wide awake well before the rest of the house, the four or five hours between us and the UK do that for the first few days, your body clock convinced it's mid-morning while the island is barely stirring and the sun not yet up. I have learned not to fight it: I get up, step out into air that is still cool, before the heat builds, and walk into Holetown for a proper breakfast. For us, these days, that often means The Cliff Bakery.
On our most recent visit we were staying at The Grove Residences – Hillside Villa 2, just behind Limegrove, which put the bakery about a five-minute walk away. These short strolls before the island is fully awake have become one of my favourite things about a morning on the West Coast.
It helps to know what you are walking towards, because this is not your average coffee and cake shop. The Cliff Bakery grew out of The Cliff, the celebrated fine-dining restaurant founded by Brian Ward, and it began life supplying artisan breads for The Cliff restaurant and The Cliff Beach Club (now QP Bistro) before becoming an baked goods outlet of its own.
The original Cliff restaurant itself sits clifftop at Derricks, just south of Paynes Bay, and requires a strict dress code where dinner can run to many hundreds of dollars per head. The bakery in Holetown shares the same pedigree of baking, made with organic flour and uncomplicated ingredients, but in a grab-and-go spot you can walk to in your t-shirt and shorts, and there is one pastry in particular I now plan my whole morning around.
It is a small, sage-green clapboard building with white trim, its window etched with a mermaid-and-trident logo above baskets of croissants under glass. Inside, dried pink and coral roses hang from the ceiling of a bright, white-panelled room, and a chalk-labelled case runs along one side. It's very cute!
The product range sits somewhere between a French boulangerie and patisserie, and everything is very beautifully presented. There is a rye-walnut-raisin sourdough I keep meaning to take back to the villa, a Basque cheesecake with a properly burnt-sugar top, and a row of lemon meringue tarts that look almost too neat to eat. The guilt of destroying these beautiful confections is the only thing which stops me eating everything on display.
The coffee is nothing to write home about, and tastes – to my unrefined pallet – more like Nespresso than anything more sophisticated, still, it hits the spot and is just what you want in the moment.
On drinks for a moment, during 2025 in addition to the new uncovered pergola seating outside, a more surprising addition of a DreadHop Brewing beer tap joined the offerings at the bakery, for anyone who fancies a cold one with a warm pastry later in the day.
But if you take one thing away from this, let it be what to order. The Caramel and Vanilla Beignet is, hand on heart, my favourite thing I have eaten in a very long time. It is a soft, enriched bun finished with a glossy, hard caramel top, and when you break it open there is a vanilla pastry cream waiting in the middle. I first tried it last year and I gleefully go back for it every time – I've heard others describe the vanilla doughnut with caramel on top, and they're talking about this masterpiece.
The pain au chocolat deserves an honourable mention too, heavily laminated and dusted with icing sugar, a bit messy to eat as a result – don't breathe too hard through your nose or you'll create a winter wonderland of icing sugar, but it is quite delicious. None of this is a low budget breakfast, and I would not pretend otherwise, but as an occasional treat to mark the start of a holiday it is hard to beat and the most affordable way to experience a taste of The Cliff experience.
The only real trick is finding it, because the Cliff Bakery genuinely is easy to miss. If you are driving, come along the main coast road and turn so that the big Massy supermarket is on your right and the petrol station on your left; before you reach the T-junction at the end you will find a small car park on the left, and the bakery is tucked into it. It is like finding Narnia at the back of the cupboard – you simply do not expect it to be there, but glorious adventures await.
While you're in Holetown, The Gourmet Shop is a few minutes away for anything else you need, and the area has a genuine little pocket of French food if you fancy a French dinner to match your French breakfast.
Go early. It opens at 7am, seven days per week, which is what makes it such a natural fit for those initial early, UK-Barbados-jet-lagged mornings. The popular bakes can sell out quickly, especially on a Sunday, so the bakery's own advice is to arrive early since you can't book a table – this is a bakery-café rather than a restaurant. Card and cash are both accepted here, so the move is simply to turn up, and to turn up early.
If you're staying at a Holetown villa within a short walk, like we were at The Grove Residences, this is the perfect Holetown breakfast: a scrummy beignet, a hot coffee, and the island only just waking up around you. It is almost reason enough not to mind the early start.
We can arrange everything for you!
When you book your Holetown villa with Hammerton Barbados, our concierge team are happy to reserve your restaurant tables and arrange your groceries before you arrive, so your first morning is yours to enjoy.
