Lucius & Richards, Peckham

Lucius & Richards
194 Bellenden Rd
Peckham
SE15 4BW

by Hashley Brown

Peckham’s the kind of place you’d expect a good greasy spoon to live; in fact it’s the kind of place you’d think the greasy spoon was born in. But as you venture in to the Peckham/Dulwich hinterland, reality blurs and you find yourself skipping through a leafy cosmopolitan fantasy. Sat on a pavement of almost boulevardian proportions being stared down by Anthony Gormley designed phallic road bollards, while to the left mothers discussed babies and to the right dogs were groomed and manicured by a man smoking exquisitely long cigarettes, I had reached the nadir of louche urban society. What better setting then for the triumph of a breakfast that was Lucius & Richards?

As befits the kind of café where a full English nestles between a halloumi salad and a homemade soup, the humble breakfast had graduated to the epicurean equivalent of high school. With no hint of shame I ordered the all-day breakfast, and what came reaffirmed my belief in mankind. For starters it didn’t arrive in a sub 5-minute swirl of efficiency. It was cooked. By somebody. Who cared.

Brown toast, thick well-cured bacon – the fat beautifully rendered to a golden crisp - a plump herby sausage, near perfect egg – just sloppy enough for dipping but with a firm moist white, and a grilled tomato that tasted like I think tomatoes probably did once. This was the kind of breakfast others should aspire to - even though its £6.50 price tag wasn’t the cheapest - it exuded a level of thought and attention to quality that put it well beyond the league of ‘euro-med’ pretenders.