Hackney’s Café Cecilia: a fashionable crowd and a pig called Arthur

There are lots of good things to say about Café Cecilia, but may I start with the shallowest? You can come off the motorway from way out in the flatlands, zigzag through the surface streets of east London, turn on to Andrews Road and park. Right outside. You can sit in a window seat, look out over the canal, the narrow boats, the vast Victorian gasworks — and your car. It is disorienting. I don’t think it impaired my critical faculties, but I was halfway through the main before I could stop myself gazing through the glass at my decomposing SUV and idiotically mouthing, “Look, my car!” I mean, this is “gritty E8”. I’ve only previously managed Restaurant Dream Parking in LA.

OK. Enough. I’m sure you’ll go on a bike, an ­electric scooter or on foot. Whatever. But I do know you’ll go, and I’ll tell you why. Café Cecilia was set up by Max Rocha, scion of the fabulous fashion family, in a thoughtfully designed new build in the most aggressively gentrified bit of Hackney. The staff are beautifully and quirkily dressed by sister Simone Rocha, the maître d’ in a parachute dress and rubber clogs, the wait staff looking like the winners of the Most Stylish Apparatchik ­contest at a tractor fair in Magnitogorsk.

The punters are even slicker. Couture-vultures, drawn by the fashion pedigree of the place, arrive in elegant dribs and understated drabs from the four postcodes in London that still contain enough disposable income to dress up for lunch. Everyone except me is thin.

My waiter at lunch had a level of intense hyper-engagement that betrayed theatrical training. He began by drawing my attention to the chalked specials board whereon, he said, everything — the pork pie, coppa steaks, prosciutto and braised shoulder — came from the same pig. “Might I know its name?” I enquired roguishly, and the poor bloke shot back “Arthur”. Then he paused for a beat, just slightly unsure, and offered, “We know what he ate and that he lived two Christmases . . . ” at which point something died behind his eyes, and he sort of trailed off. I enquired after the lemon sole, which remained nameless.

I ordered a salt cod brandade (also suspiciously anonymous. Why? Why does he hate fish?) which came with deep-fried polenta and radishes for dipping. Dipping radishes mark a place as a descendant of the Hendersons at St John and Rochelle ­Canteen, or the River Cafe, the latter of which this set-up ­interestingly resembles. The brandade was faultless; smooth mash, plenty of oil and the fish soaked enough for politeness, but not so its soul had entirely sublimated. It’s a thin line and chef Rocha treads it well. The polenta fries were pleasant, a little oily and perhaps, ultimately, de trop.

It was an odd quirk, but though the portions were really quite healthy, I can’t ever remember a restaurant with smaller plates. All of them — starter, main, dessert — tiny. But then, standing in expensive spaces, being served by younger, thinner people and wondering why nothing is big enough constitutes my whole ­experience of fashion.

Poor Arthur’s shoulder, when braised in milk with summer savory, was consummate. Very slowly cooked, so the meat shredded at a glance, and interspersed shamelessly with joyous lumps of healthy adipose tissue. Coco blanc beans, also stewed in plentiful fats, were dotted with fresh girolles. With an austere palette of muted earth tones, this was not overly primped or easily ’grammable food, but it scored high on flavours and artisanal integrity.

I mightily enjoyed the lemon sole, grilled à point with ­lashings of butter and a small salad of marinated tomatoes. No failings here save my own preference that a sole, even when served “whole”, should have the extreme edges trimmed away with scissors before cooking. It’s a pleasure to remove the spine and large ribs at the table, but the hundreds of tiny fin spines right around the edge bring nothing to the party but inconvenience and unnecessary frustration. The chips were ideal for dipping contemplatively into the herb mayo as the ­afternoon progressed.

There was a very competent-looking ginger cake for ­dessert, all dark spice and brooding complexity like Tom Hardy, only smeared with a thick layer of Jersey cream. But I would not let it distract me for, wondrous to tell, there on the menu, as bold as brass, was deep-fried bread and butter pudding with cold ­custard. I’ve put away kilos of B&B pudding in my day and consider myself an aficionado, but this stuff was way off any recognised scale. Not slabby, rubbery or jellified, but light and airy, almost like a pain perdu. Deep-fried for heat and crispness of casing. A perfect square sitting in a pool of ­custard at the ideal temperature to complement and support. I’m sorry. I just can’t “be there” for people who take their custard hot.

The parking, the beautiful people and a first-rate method actor taking the orders are all exotically Tinseltown, but the core of Cecilia could not be more thoroughly British. It’s 28 years since St John launched, and the River Cafe served its first food in 1987. I’m not sure why but only now are we seeing enough restaurants “inspired” by them, burgeoning so simultaneously as to risk cliché. I’m comfortable with this as a working definition of Modern British and I’m happy to embrace it, but I’m aware that others will call it tired.

This sounds like a strange conclusion to draw about a place that’s fashionable in every sense, but there’s almost nothing new about Café Cecilia, and I believe that suits me rather well.

Tim Hayward is the winner of best food writer at the Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards 2022

Follow Tim on Twitter @TimHayward and email him at tim.hayward@ft.com

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