Little Mo's Cafe, Deptford

Little Mo’s Cafe
219 Deptford High Street
Deptford
SE8
020 8692 5177

by Des Ayuno

Little Mo’s is definitely at the wrong end of the high street – away from the temptations of Deptford Market; away from the vintage clothing shop that seems to think it’s in W8, not SE8; away from the Salvation Army, where clusters of creatively coiffed students clog the doorway. Little Mo’s is actually Little Mo, announced on its tatty facade in a bright red, bizarrely Wild West-style font. In the dusty front window a stack of broken furniture is topped with an enormous, shrivelled jade plant. There is a fruit machine, and a loo that is so nearly an outdoor toilet as to surely require EU-legislated demolition. The only other customer that chilly morning was a gentleman nursing a cuppa who had parked his shopping cart, full of overstuffed plastic bags and odd textiles, and his two walking sticks (one broken), directly in the doorway. In short, it is such a black hole of unremitting, empty-eyed misery that it probably inspired the EastEnders character of the same name.

I went for the safe option of eggs, mushrooms and beans on toast; my companion (a devoted admirer of the place) ordered something that sounded like “the big pork breakfast” with wild enthusiasm. His most persuasive entreaties did not convince me to try the pink sausages nor grey bacon, both of which he pronounced heavenly. My meal was serviceable. The food was beside the point. I shall return on a rainy day in November, possibly after the death of a distant family member or pet, to wallow in dejection and self-pity – and I shall thoroughly enjoy it.