I heart the Regency

The Regency Cafe, 17-19 Regency Street, Westminster

Breakfast for two: £12

Returning to the Regency is like stepping back to a bygone age of cooking.  It evokes rosy feelings of an earlier time when people drank tea and ate dripping on their toast - even if that time pre-dates your own birth by a good 30 years.  There's no dripping on offer now but they will make you a liver sandwich.

Even if you have never been, you would recognise the Regency.  The white and black exterior and the plastic tables sitting under half-curtained windows have featured in advertisements and a film (Layer Cake, if you are interested). Indeed, the tea at the Regency is actually made in the same type of oversized metal pot that features in the scene.  Its famous history neither adds to nor detracts from the Regency's charm.  It has its own character and appeal that make it possibly the finest cafe in London. 

Food is ordered from the counter, which is usually manned by a formidable lady with an impressive vocal range who shouts the orders as they come out.  Beware if she appends "going cold" at the end of your order, it is a sign that you have been too slow to collect your food, marking you out as a newcomer to the Regency.  The familiarity of the staff with many of the customers suggests that there are plenty of regular visitors. On the morning of our last trip, we spotted taxi drivers, office workers from nearby Government Departments, local builders and a handful of tourists.

We were there for breakfast - a rather large affair that involved black pudding and bubble alongside the standard fare.  It was good.  The eggs were soft, the sausages herby and meaty (not those fairly meatless pink things that turn a uniform shade of brown when cooked) and the whole thing swam with baked beans. It was not the best cooked breakfast either of us had ever eaten (the jury is still out on that one, although Medcalf on Exmouth Market is a current favourite) but it was enormous, tasty and pretty cheap.  In short, everything you could want from a proper greasy spoon.

The only downside is that it keeps slightly inconvenient opening times: it closes at seven in the evening during the week, at noon on Saturday and does not open on Sundays. So, unless you happen to live or work in the area, it seems like a lot of effort just for a cafe.  That said, I think it is probably worth it. To experience a small part of London's culinary history, if nothing else.