Café Deco, WC1

The ascetic aesthetic

Café Deco is a restaurant that prizes simplicity above all. That’s certainly not a unique outlook in London, a city whose food scene is still shaped above all by the English austerity of St. John. But there are still few restaurants that execute it well, that resist the temptation to adornment, to unorthodoxy for the sake of it. Café Deco is certainly one of them.

That’s none more true than in the restaurant’s unlikely hero dish: egg mayonnaise. I’m not sure many other restaurants could plausibly claim that this was their star attraction, but chef Anna Tobias has turned it into Café Deco’s sole ever-present item thanks to her instinct to do less, not more. There is an egg. It’s been hard-boiled, but left jammy in the centre; six minutes or so, I’d say. There is mayonnaise. It’s the good stuff, homemade, so luscious and golden you might think it were hollandaise. The egg is sliced in half, the mayonnaise dolloped on top. Tobias betrays herself with a pair of anchovy fillets, criss-crossed on top, a saline indulgence that gives away that she’s not entirely an ascetic. It’s a hero dish for anyone who lives their life by the teachings of Marie Kondo; I love it.

I’ve been meaning to eat at Tobias’ Bloomsbury restaurant ever since it opened, which unfortunately happened just about at the peak of the Covid pandemic. I never quite made it during Café Deco’s first few months, and then life got in the way and it became just another pin on my Google Maps, one of countless restaurants I wanted to get to but wasn’t sure quite when I’d manage. Friends visiting from the US finally gave me the excuse, with Café Deco my stand-in for the larger modern British restaurant milieu I wanted to introduce them to.

There certainly is an anglicism to the menu, though with the same European inflection you’ll find in almost every great restaurant that calls itself English. Cauliflower fritters deliver layers of lacy crunch, and arrive alongside a beige pool of coronation sauce, warmly spiced and richly fruity. For my American friends this is no doubt a better introduction to the concept of coronation chicken than any meal deal sandwich could manage. Slabs of pig’s head terrine are firmly jellied, strikingly sweet if not for the bitter leaf salad served alongside. Thick spears of asparagus still have crunch at their centre; they are given no embellishment beyond a simple vinaigrette, and nor should they have been.

Café Deco’s name befits both the space, and the modesty of the menu. With a handful of tables and a spread of counter seats, there’s a cosy comfort to the room that you won’t find often in this part of town. The six of us found ourselves crammed into a nook in the back, a makeshift private dining room that accentuated the effect, soon to be heaving with martini glasses and sharing plates.

While Tobias’ austerity has undeniable allure among the starters, where it stands in stark contrast to so many other chefs’ approach, it’s a little less striking when it comes to the mains — it’s hard to earnestly sell “meat and two veg” as a bold culinary outlook. Still, as much as they may lack immediate excitement, there’s no shortage of craft. A spinach and mushroom jalousie — a French style of latticed pie, for anyone else unfamiliar — might well be the best thing we ate all night, buttery pastry matched by a deep, earthy filling. Grilled trout is a little more forgettable, but the slow-cooked fennel heaped next to it is anything but. It strained the limits of my politeness not to heap all that was left onto my plate. It was a similar story with a roast chicken leg: pleasant enough, but outshone by the mustard and tarragon mash beneath it, not to mention the herby juices that were soon mopped up by every stray roast potato that was up to the task.

For me the only real dud came amidst the desserts, blood orange jelly that felt strangely inert. An apple and rhubarb was better, though also muted, lacking the sharp tang I wanted from the last of the season’s rhubarb. The mango and passionfruit pavlova was more impactful, spoon-soft fruit slowly collapsing into a crisp cloud of meringue — and I’m not sure I’d go back without making space for at least one scoop of the homemade ice cream.

Café Deco’s menu apparently changes regularly. By the time you visit, it’s likely almost nothing I ate will be on that day, with the sole exception of that hard-boiled egg, hidden under a spoonful of mayo. But whatever is on, you can bet on the ethos behind it. A handful of high quality ingredients, scarcely more than are mentioned on the menu. Simple and classic combinations, from British and European staples. And no flair or flourishes required, save a criss-crossed anchovy fillet or two.