Arthur’s Cafe
495 Kingsland Rd
Kingsland
E8 4AU
020 7254 3391
by Malcolm Eggs
It was 1935 when Arthur’s opened. Then, like now, the world was in the middle of a nasty economic crisis. It was also the year that Monopoly was first released. People ate sausage and eggs then, and they do in 2008, and they will – barring a sizeable jolt to society as we know it – continue to do so in 2081. And for all the canny allure of the sign out front advertising the cafe’s longevity and the father, son and grandson who have run the place, once you’re inside there is much you will recognise from any other high street cafe – the highly wipe-able tables, a glass counter full of sandwich fillings, the laminated menus.
But there is something more than that here. It’s partly in the presence of the current Arthur himself, a benevolent grey-haired figure, whose service is reserved for those ordering hot meals, and who visibly lifts morale in both customers and staff every time he walks past or says a word. It’s partly in the breadth of the clientele: the jubilant families, the nice old ladies, the sad old rockers, the laughing decorators. But it’s mainly in the near-invisible slickness of this operation, something that can only come with the benefit of seventy-three years of institutional experience – experience which can almost entirely be summed up as: cook it well, make sure it’s hot, know your customers properly.
Having arrived after 11.30, Mabel and I had missed the breakfast menu, so went for the closest lunch option of sausage, egg and chips. Mine was one of two birthdays taking place: the table next door was home to an extended family, gathered around several slap-up lunches and one lucky baby, to celebrate what looked to be happy return number one. The food arrived quickly and for the quarter of an hour it took me to eat it, I was entirely swept up in its hotness and deliciousness. I felt a heightened sense of being alive. If there was a downside it was that my two fried eggs were so flawless they made me momentarily apoplectic, with the countless quacks who've got eggs wrong in the past. The toast was amazing too: white bloomer, and real butter.
During the hazy afterglow I observed the chattering clientele squeezed onto every available seat, and something occurred to me about all these people who sob about things like "the sad death of the local caff". If they removed the spectacles of their foregone conclusions for just a moment, they would see caffs everywhere that are well-run economic units, far better insulated from the coming strife than the little shoots of gentrification – the artisan bakeries and pastiche tea rooms – who ostensibly threaten their existence. Not that places like Arthur’s care, or need to care, what I think about them. I’m willing to bet that they’ll outlast us all.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Breakfasts and Beds: 11, Carey's Cottages, Brockenhurst, Hampshire
11, Carey's Cottages
Butt's Lawn
Brockenhurst
Hants
SO42 7TF
01590 622 276
www.careyscottages.co.uk
by Hashley Brown
Everywhere. Every book, picture, ornament or sculpture is a horse. And if through some thematic slip it's not equine, then it's a bird, or a hippo, or a panda, or a cat, or a dog. But mostly horses. Even the book casually slung by the bath is a novel starring a horse in a dramatic lead. Oh, and when you look out of the toilet window there's even a real horse looking back at you. This is more shrine than BnB, and when you look harder there're even a few religious icons; occasionally crucifixes peer down on the pile of saddles.
Stumble upon this unassuming cottage in the New Forest and it does feel like wandering into the disturbed dreams of a particularly horsey little girl, who also loves all the other animals on God's earth. But once you're past the initial shock, and wondering whether you'll find a horses head in your bed (maybe she shoots them in the face and makes sausages out of their bodies, my drunken comrade pondered) then 11 Carey's Cottages has all the charm of staying in a well-ordered antique shop.
After a deep sleep, undisturbed by horse heads or otherwise, we awoke with a surprising sprightliness that comes only from being hunkered down under freshly heavy blankets in an airy country house. Breakfast was heralded by the chiming of a grandfather clock and the tuneful chirping of a clutch of budgerigars, and the reassuring distant smell of frying bacon. Immaculately presented, the dining room was as far as you can get from generic Ikea-n catering, and the opposite of the over-manicured period guesthouse - it was clearly simply the home of our mildly eccentric host. As well as the oil paintings in the conservatory, and the stuffed magpie peering from behind a door; there was a sense of whimsy about the crockery designs, the jumble of teaspoons were old and monogrammed and from the depths of the last century.
Food was good, and followed the three course breakfast plan. Cereal to start; eggs, bacon and sausage to follow; and rounds of toast, jam and butter to end; and all accompanied by an ever replenished pot of tea. It wasn't the most gourmand of breakfasts I've ever eaten, but it fitted the surroundings so well. Immaculately presented in a homely fashion it made the perfect start to a rainy Sunday. And no, the sausages weren't made from horses.
Butt's Lawn
Brockenhurst
Hants
SO42 7TF
01590 622 276
www.careyscottages.co.uk
by Hashley Brown
Everywhere. Every book, picture, ornament or sculpture is a horse. And if through some thematic slip it's not equine, then it's a bird, or a hippo, or a panda, or a cat, or a dog. But mostly horses. Even the book casually slung by the bath is a novel starring a horse in a dramatic lead. Oh, and when you look out of the toilet window there's even a real horse looking back at you. This is more shrine than BnB, and when you look harder there're even a few religious icons; occasionally crucifixes peer down on the pile of saddles.
Stumble upon this unassuming cottage in the New Forest and it does feel like wandering into the disturbed dreams of a particularly horsey little girl, who also loves all the other animals on God's earth. But once you're past the initial shock, and wondering whether you'll find a horses head in your bed (maybe she shoots them in the face and makes sausages out of their bodies, my drunken comrade pondered) then 11 Carey's Cottages has all the charm of staying in a well-ordered antique shop.
After a deep sleep, undisturbed by horse heads or otherwise, we awoke with a surprising sprightliness that comes only from being hunkered down under freshly heavy blankets in an airy country house. Breakfast was heralded by the chiming of a grandfather clock and the tuneful chirping of a clutch of budgerigars, and the reassuring distant smell of frying bacon. Immaculately presented, the dining room was as far as you can get from generic Ikea-n catering, and the opposite of the over-manicured period guesthouse - it was clearly simply the home of our mildly eccentric host. As well as the oil paintings in the conservatory, and the stuffed magpie peering from behind a door; there was a sense of whimsy about the crockery designs, the jumble of teaspoons were old and monogrammed and from the depths of the last century.
Food was good, and followed the three course breakfast plan. Cereal to start; eggs, bacon and sausage to follow; and rounds of toast, jam and butter to end; and all accompanied by an ever replenished pot of tea. It wasn't the most gourmand of breakfasts I've ever eaten, but it fitted the surroundings so well. Immaculately presented in a homely fashion it made the perfect start to a rainy Sunday. And no, the sausages weren't made from horses.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Diana's Diner, Covent Garden
Diana's Diner
39 Endell Street
Covent Garden
WC2H 9BA
020 7240 0242
by Cher E Jamm
Every now and then, there comes a caff that is so perfect, so dishevelled in all the right places, so masterful in the art of making breakfast, that it makes me just want to fall to my knees and weep hot tears of joy. Diana's Diner is such a place.
It's been sitting pretty on Endell Street, Covent Garden for eons. I, shamefully, had turned my nose up and walked past it for many a year. Today, with my companions - one of whom is eight months with child and craving bacon - I set foot through its fine doors and knew instantly that I had been a fool. Why had I never gone in? Because the bright lights of Covent Garden, with its macchiatos here and its croissants there had lured me away, chewed me up and spat me out onto the pavement - that’s why.
Diana's Diner is not fancy. It doesn't do organic anything. It doesn't serve soya milk, and I suspect that if you were to ask for brown or granary toast, you would be laughed at. It’s full of labourers, clubbers on their way home, white collars on their way in to work and has-been rockstars on their way to nowhere in particular. In the latter category were Danny Goffey and the other guy from Supergrass, sat in matching red Ray-bans, furiously shovelling bacon and egg butties into their increasingly jowly gobs.
To the food. A Full English came with perfect mushrooms with not a bit of slime, two halves of grilled tomato properly cooked with their blackened faces staring proudly from the plate, a sausage that was nice to look at but as with so many sausages these days, tasted of nothing. The bacon – oh, the bacon – was crisp, plentiful, delicious. Beans were hot and the scrambled eggs were fluffy, light and cooked with a panache that is rare in these weary times. Salsa Sally was feeling regal and opted for the Breakfast Royale, more scrambled eggs and a generous portion of smoked salmon on toast. Her only negative observation was that she would have preferred the toast on the side so as to prevent it from becoming soggy. Both meals came with a cup of tea and were modestly priced at £4.50.
The decor was simple: wooden tables and ramshackle chairs, walls filled with framed, signed photos of 1980s stage actors I’ve never heard of. The service was polite and swift. The owner, a cheery Portuguese man kept calling us 'bella', insisting our pregnant friend eat for free. "You are eating for two,” he said. “It is an honour to have you in here”.
Actually, the honour was all ours.
39 Endell Street
Covent Garden
WC2H 9BA
020 7240 0242
by Cher E Jamm
Every now and then, there comes a caff that is so perfect, so dishevelled in all the right places, so masterful in the art of making breakfast, that it makes me just want to fall to my knees and weep hot tears of joy. Diana's Diner is such a place.
It's been sitting pretty on Endell Street, Covent Garden for eons. I, shamefully, had turned my nose up and walked past it for many a year. Today, with my companions - one of whom is eight months with child and craving bacon - I set foot through its fine doors and knew instantly that I had been a fool. Why had I never gone in? Because the bright lights of Covent Garden, with its macchiatos here and its croissants there had lured me away, chewed me up and spat me out onto the pavement - that’s why.
Diana's Diner is not fancy. It doesn't do organic anything. It doesn't serve soya milk, and I suspect that if you were to ask for brown or granary toast, you would be laughed at. It’s full of labourers, clubbers on their way home, white collars on their way in to work and has-been rockstars on their way to nowhere in particular. In the latter category were Danny Goffey and the other guy from Supergrass, sat in matching red Ray-bans, furiously shovelling bacon and egg butties into their increasingly jowly gobs.
To the food. A Full English came with perfect mushrooms with not a bit of slime, two halves of grilled tomato properly cooked with their blackened faces staring proudly from the plate, a sausage that was nice to look at but as with so many sausages these days, tasted of nothing. The bacon – oh, the bacon – was crisp, plentiful, delicious. Beans were hot and the scrambled eggs were fluffy, light and cooked with a panache that is rare in these weary times. Salsa Sally was feeling regal and opted for the Breakfast Royale, more scrambled eggs and a generous portion of smoked salmon on toast. Her only negative observation was that she would have preferred the toast on the side so as to prevent it from becoming soggy. Both meals came with a cup of tea and were modestly priced at £4.50.
The decor was simple: wooden tables and ramshackle chairs, walls filled with framed, signed photos of 1980s stage actors I’ve never heard of. The service was polite and swift. The owner, a cheery Portuguese man kept calling us 'bella', insisting our pregnant friend eat for free. "You are eating for two,” he said. “It is an honour to have you in here”.
Actually, the honour was all ours.
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