eggbaconchipsandbeans

new piccadilly, denman street, w1

a typically individual take on the ebcab from the new piccadilly. nice chips, but the bacon's kind of curly, it's those almost american crunchy bits of bacon, not the damp slabs that cafes normally love. egg nestling away there. beans a little bland. not heinz? almost over the edge of the plate. marvelous.

i have very fond memories of the new piccadilly. and not just because it's a design classic. we used to come here in the 80s, when we first moved to london. we'd meet after work at the criterion at piccadilly circus (when you could just sit there and have a coffee and a croissant in that incredible room) and then go to the NP for something to eat. or, since we weren't great at night clubs we'd just wonder around soho in the evening and stop there for something to eat. it was cheap, welcoming and always full of interesting people. plus, we really liked the 'eats' sign in the window. it reminded us of america.

sample conversations between staff and regulars when i was in there; how evil VAT was (and westminster council seemed to get a lot of the blame for that), how the dutch invented VAT, or maybe it was the french, the activities of frederick the great, falling asleep on the bus and waking up in poole, how the new piccadilly keeps being featured in glossy magazines (mostly mademoiselle), how someone came in to try and get it listed and how lorenzo would try and sell it first.

look at that welcoming glow.

sky 2, hanson street, w1

lovely. generous portions. nice crunchy chips. everything has its place, nothing on top of anything else.

don't forget the sauce.

oops. the playmobil man's had a heart attack. sky 2 is an old favourite since we live round the corner. there's a lot going on. it's a proper no-frills, small/family business cafe.

the 'condiment cluster' is always a sign of a good cafe. is everything there? is it arranged in a way that makes sense? this is a classic format.

a good cafe also has arbritary and pointless rules. what does 'set menu can not be changed' actually mean? and a good cafe always makes fullsome use of clip art.

look, out of the window, a nice moment for a cafe, some poor devil who's broken down.

this is one of the little details i like about this place. it's called sky 2, it says so outside. because the same people also own the sky cafe at the other end of the same street, 2 minutes walk south. i presume it was called the hanson cafe before they took it over. because they're still got a lot of hanson menus and they wear a combination of hanson and sky branded t-shirts. it's a great place, lovely people.

And here's 10 minutes of audio recorded one tuesday morning in sky 2