Would you make the same breakfast twice every day?

What did you have for breakfast today? A bowl of soggy cereal, scoffed down between swipes of bronzer and shifts with the hairdryer? Peanut butter on toast, wrapped in paper towel and eaten en route to the bus? Or maybe all you could manage was a flat white at the office?

Better not look at Michael Zee’s Instagram account, Symmetry Breakfast. The account is dedicated to – what else? – breakfast! And each day the former museum worker posts a different, beautiful image of two breakfasts (one for Zee, and one for his partner, Mark van Beek) laid out in perfect symmetry. It’s the stuff of breakfast dreams – and with more than 600,000 followers, it’s clear that many of us share the dream of a perfect brekky.

Zee opened the account in 2014 after he posted a picture of an accidentally symmetrical breakfast to his private social media account, and the response was positive. Zee was always the breakfast chef in the house, he says. “The whole thing started because Mark and I both had busy jobs, but Mark was exceptionally busy to the point that during many weeks in the year I’d only see him at breakfast! Out of wanting to spend more time with him early on in our relationship, I started preparing breakfast for the two of us.”

The breakfasts – which Zee says take between five minutes and five hours to make – are wildly creative and ethnically diverse. Though the men live in England, you’ll rarely see a fry-up on Zee’s feed. Instead, there are Dutch poffertjes and dim sum, white peach and sesame halva loaf and breakfast banh mis, masala hash browns and American-style bagel burgers. There’s laasida, a traditional Moroccan dish of couscous flavoured with butter and honey, and torta di pere e mandorle, a beloved Italian breakfast cake. There’s the South African riff on a toasted sammy – the braaibroodjie – and Hong Kong-style egg waffles.

Inspiration, Zee tells SBS, comes from all over. “I’m always thinking about it,” he says, “and anything can inspire the next meal – an old film, a book found in a charity shop, travelling, speaking to friends who tell me about something they ate.” He’s found that food can be intensely meaningful, and the cultural range from which he cooks can elicit strong responses from his followers. “I’ve learnt that food can be deeply political and personal. The most controversial comments come from cuisines that are in regions of conflict.”

Zee got his start in the kitchen thanks to his grandfather, who emigrated from Shanghai to Liverpool during World War Two. Later, Zee says, he opened a number of Chinese restaurants. “My Dad helped manage them,” says Zee. “It was the exposure of being in a restaurant kitchen as a child that meant I was always adventurous and confident using knives and handling strange food.”

That said, he hasn’t always been a huge fan of the most important meal of the day. “I do have good memories of breakfast as a child, but I moved to London in my mid-twenties. Most of the time [I had] coffee and cigarettes. It wasn’t until I met Mark that it became a more elaborate meal.”

For the sake of the account, breakfast must change daily, but Zee says that his last breakfast would probably have to be eggs Benedict. “I have a savoury tooth – while Mark is more on the sweet side – but I think we can both agree that eggs Benedict is a classic, and will always bring us happiness.”

Follow Michael Zee at Instagram here or on his website.