Café Deco
Anna Tobias rewrites the card every week around whatever her suppliers sent, and there is almost always a pie on it.1
Why go
Tobias cooked at Rochelle Canteen and the River Cafe, and this Store Street room is the first place of her own.1 She opened it quietly in late 2020 with the 40 Maltby Street team, in a greasy spoon that already carried the name, and spent the lockdown selling takeaway lunches out of it.1 The kitchen takes the week's produce and rewrites the card around it, which Hot Dinners found out by returning: the menu had changed completely seven days after their visit.1 Harden's survey diners say the ingredients are the star and the dishes sing
.2 The wine is the 40 Maltby Street half of the arrangement, non-intervention throughout, with bottles starting around 30 pounds.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever the pie is that week. Hot Dinners ate a pumpkin, potato and cheddar version in January 2022 at 16 pounds and called it
great pastry and a just a gorgeous layered pie
.1 - Order: the cauliflower cheese croquette,
crisp outside, properly gooey within and served with the best brown sauce
, and the smoked cod's roe on toast with boiled egg and cress.1 - Order: the creme caramel,
a perfect joy of a dessert, lovely burnt top and a faint citrus note
.1 - Avoid: coming back for a dish you liked last time. The card is rewritten weekly and nothing is held over.1
What locals & experts say
- Harden's survey diners, most recent edition:
A small but perfectly crafted menu
from Tobiaswins admirers for her revamped greasy spoon in Bloomsbury
, wherethere's no frill or nonsense here, just Flavour with a capital F
. The same edition records the reservation:there's an undercurrent of feeling, though, that the prices charged might justify a little more pizzazz.
2 - Harden's, an earlier edition, printing the minority view in full:
although the place hits the nerve of the Zeitgeist, with food suggesting honesty and simplicity, complete with an air of sophistication, its success is a pricey London phenomenon possibly explained by the decline in home cooking.
2 - Hot Dinners, after a January 2022 visit:
Every dish we had here might have soundd simple from its description on the menu but was anything but by the time it ended up on the plate. Here, you're enjoying some of London's best modern cooking at reasonable prices.
1
Good to know
- Booking: tables run on two-hour slots, so plan the rest of the evening elsewhere.1
- Where to sit: the front room is the one to ask for. There are high tops and counter seats, a smaller dining room at the back, more seating downstairs by the kitchen, and a small terrace out front.1
- Money: Harden's records wine at 39 pounds a bottle, filter coffee at 4, and 12.5 percent service. The dish prices above are from January 2022.2
- Hours: not published in anything reachable here.
Verdict
could-visit — A cook who came off Rochelle Canteen and the River Cafe rewrites a short card every week around what her suppliers actually sent, which is the kind of kitchen that rewards turning up twice and punishes ordering from memory. The 40 Maltby Street team bought the wine and it is non-intervention throughout, with bottles from around 30 pounds, so the drinking is as considered as the plates. Harden's survey diners land on 'the ingredients are the star and the dishes sing', and the same guide prints the objection that the prices might justify more pizzazz, which is fair on a room where a confit duck leg ran 22.50 in 2022. Hot Dinners called it 'some of London's best modern cooking at reasonable prices' after a January visit. It sits here rather than higher because no named critic has written it up in anything reachable here, and because the cooking is very good rather than the reason you cross London.