Café Deco
Bloomsbury, London
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With Anna Tobias, good food comes in shades of brown. From the pale blonde of chicken broth and dumplings to the golden crust of pheasant pie and the deep tan of chicken Marbella, she favours classical recipes that call for hot pans and slow cooking. The approach has cross-generational appeal: both fresh-faced undergraduates and distinguished professors from the surrounding universities seem equally at ease in this pleasant little bistro. The weekly-changing menu is reflective of both the season and the chef’s enthusiasms. Thus you’ll find steamed asparagus, damson ice cream and radicchio risotto when the time is right, and in the mix, a soup, always a soup (perhaps mulligatawny or Polish zurek), often something Mitteleuropean (Black Forest gâteau, schnitzel etc), and a tip of the hat to a mentor (she shares a love of steamed puds with Quo Vadis's Jeremy Lee). The pro-European wine list by partner Gergovie Wines is minimally annotated so if you’re not not au fait with all the new low-intervention names, you will be lost. Allow the eager-to-please staff to navigate.
