Terry’s Cafe

Address:  158 Great Suffolk St, London SE1 1PE
Bookings:  Walk ins only
Day:  Saturday
Meal:  Breakfast/lunch
Price: ££
Rating: 7 /10

We spent last week in Tuscany. There are many things that the Tuscans understand about la bella vita, but making edible bread certainly isn’t one of them. If any Italian tells you differently, then their taste buds have been severely brainwashed.

I was reminded of this fact again this morning, at Terry’s Café, on Great Suffolk Street, Borough, as I buttered up some inch-thick bloomer bread. It was soft, fluffy, wholesome, and, vitally (listen up Tuscans!), salted. And butter! Why, oh why, oh why would anyone, anywhere in the world, serve bread without butter? It seems almost perverse. They are one of the great double acts of culinary history, along with lemon and salmon, ketchup and chips, pasta and cheese. To keep them apart seems almost cruel. And yet the Tuscans do.

Never mind, we’re back in England now, and all is right. Terry’s Café is a grand little place decorated with old black and white photos of cockney market stall owners, bobbies on the beat, and women cheerily helping with the war effort. Union Jacks deck the walls, a photo of the Queen resplendently watches over assembled diners, and china plates commemorate various royal weddings or national anniversaries. In other words, it is a sort of pastiche of 1950s England, a restaurant harking back to a homelier time when Britannia still just about ruled the waves.

It also serves a mean breakfast. I ordered an Austin’s BLT Special, which was the aforementioned bloomer bread just about managing to restrain a riot of egg, bacon, lettuce, cheese, tomato and mayonnaise. It was simple, basic, hearty and delicious. As I took bite after bite, I felt myself marching towards a classic Saturday morning food coma, but I was unable to stop myself. The taste was worth the lethargy. This is how a sandwich should be made, the sort of thing that John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, would have wrapped up and taken on a hunting trip, to sustain himself in-between pursuing foxes and spearing stags.

My partner in culinary crime ordered the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs (what else?) and proceeded to drown the salmon many times over in lemon juice (there’s that combo again!). She reported the salmon fantastic, and the scrambled eggs golden, smooth and delicious, well beaten and well buttered.

Complete with two glasses of very fresh orange juice (which you would have been lucky to get in the real 1950s England) and some thumping breakfast tea, the whole bill comes to less than £30.

Terry’s Café is not Michelin type food. It doesn’t remotely aspire to be. But there aren’t any cafes I’ve visited in London that do what it does as well as it does it. It’s the best of its kind. Which only a cluster of restaurants can claim to be. So if you’re a sucker for a bit of wistful nostalgia or a hearty fry-up, or if you’re a wandering Tuscan looking to learn how bread should taste, take a trip to Terry’s one morning (it closes at 2pm).