Another week in London, another gastronomic mash-up that nobody asked for but everyone’s queuing at. This is a city that now boasts a Chinese/Portuguese ‘ricery’, a Scottish/Italian tapas bar and a joint selling Japanese/Caribbean sushi burgers – because the food scene’s new favourite thing to do is push two cuisines together like Barbies and make them kiss.
But hold onto your paper bib, because here comes the backlash. On the flipside of all that tiring innovation, a new crop of restaurants is retreating into the past instead, with kitschy kitchens, retro decor and menus from the decades taste forgot.
We don’t mean glitzy 50s Americana, either – call it quinoa fatigue, but there’s a growing appetite for flavours straight out of your childhood or the back of your Nan's larder. Potato waffles, chicken kiev, egg and chips, and posh riffs on Angel Delight. Rice pudding was touted as the ‘food of 2016’ earlier this year when Waitrose reported a rise in sales of the milky classic (with skin please), and even Spam is making an unlikely comeback. There’ll be a Findus Crispy Pancake pop-up before the year is out.
So if the brave new world isn’t for you, then how about the old one, drenched in custard? Here are the best places in London to take your tastebuds on a trip down memory lane...
Cafes that look like your Gran’s sitting room are hardly a new idea, but Crouch End cafe Edith’s House is probably the only one where you can eat your lunch at a chintzy dressing table, sat on a quilted bedspread or perched on a pink toilet. If it was any more authentic, the waiters would nag you to get married, slip liver in the vegetarian quiche or sigh ‘of course, I’ll probably be dead next Christmas’ while handing over the dessert menu.
But while the food nods to days gone by – your bacon bap comes sandwiched between two homemade Welsh rarebit scones – it’s also firmly rooted in 2016. There are no stale pink wafers or tripe to be had, but there are gluten-free brunches and almond milk to cater for your fancy city ways. Eat up, then call your actual Gran.
Photo: via @edithshouselondon.
It’s shameful how most of us have forgotten about jacket potatoes. Because sometimes guys, the answer to ‘what do I want for lunch today?’ isn’t kale and mackerel salad or a vegan buddha bowl. It’s a whacking great tattie, all crispy-skinned and oozing with butter and beans, and to pretend otherwise day after day is just masochism.
Thankfully, The Potato Project has come to remind us all what we’re missing. Serving up modest twists on trad toppings – borlotti bean, tomato and mature Cheddar cheese, chilli beef ragu and blue cheese or smoked ham hock, Cheddar and piccalilli – the Soho carb crusaders will have you napping at your desk all afternoon. Spuds, we like.
Photo: via @thepotatoproject_london.
The 80s didn’t mean lumpy mash and Arctic roll for everyone. At Chinese Laundry, Islington’s gleefully kitsch homage to family life and food in 80s mainland China, retro grub means lava chicken, soy-braised twice-cooked lamb belly and fried century egg with peanut butter mayo. There are lavish brunch options (naturally), involving crispy scallion pancakes, dumplings and chicken congee. Emphasis is on long, slow cooking, fermented, pickled produce – and ‘deadly’ Chinese spirits. Because back then, drinking was good for you.
Photo: via @ninafitton.
If you’re craving nostalgia but not prepared to go the whole (boiled) hog, Nanna’s is the perfect compromise. While the interior is all '70s shag pile rugs, brown crockery and formica sideboards, the menu at this Islington cafe is reassuringly fresh. There are seasonal salads, hearty sandwiches and WI-worthy cakes, plus on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays you can stay up late for small plates and cocktails. Don’t tell your mum.
Photo: via @nannasN1.
Guilty pleasures are order of the day at this Exmouth Market bar, which looks 2016 enough but proudly specialises in the kind of dishes that usually come with a side of middle managers singing "Living on a Prayer" with their ties round their heads.
There are oozy garlic kievs, prawn cocktails, Spam fritters, Black Forest trifles and lurid cocktails to ease your hangover or bring on a new one, while a riff on ‘cheese and pineapple on sticks’ – breaded and deep-fried cheese with pineapple jelly – will make you yearn for the kind of birthday party where you play chubby bunnies and pass out after a heavy session on a bouncy castle. Somebody get the lady an Uber.
Photo: via @rngmiles012.
The comfort food king of Carnaby Street, Mother Mash is a temple to Bodger and Badger’s favourite dinner – although thankfully, nothing here comes out of a packet. Choose your heap of potato, freshly mashed to order, then add sausages or a pie and one of five different gravies. In carbs we trust.
Photo: via @mothermash.
If hipster irony leaves a sour taste in your mouth, try a slice of authentic retro dining at Oslo Court instead. Housed in a block of flats in St John’s Wood, the neighbourhood restaurant has been run by Tony Sanchez and family for nearly 35 years – and has barely changed since 1982. The menu is a throwback to times when duck l’orange and steak Diane were the height of sophistication, the decor is straight out of a Victoria Wood sketch, and even the website will make you weep for a gentler era when ‘clean eating’ meant using a finger bowl with your lobster.
Photo: via @hannahc0le.
Brunch wasn’t a thing in the '90s, but why let that hold you back? For those who like their breakfast full of ketchup and their soundtrack full of cheese, twice-monthly pop-up The '90s Brunch promises more nostalgic mayhem than that old VHS of Live and Kicking you taped off the telly.
With a menu of simple stodge – burgers, fishfinger sandwiches, doughnuts – this one is really more about fun than gourmet finesse. But then, so were the '90s.
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