A new British/Italian restaurant is set to open on Peckham’s Rye Lane this spring.
The all-day Café Britaly comes from co-owner Richard Crampton-Platt and chef Alex Purdie, who met working at Soho’s Bocca di Lupo (Time Out’s best London restaurant of 2009, as it happens).
Alex was most recently senior chef at the acclaimed Bouchon Racine in Farringdon, and the new restaurant promises to serve what it’s calling ‘authentically Britalian’ dishes. This means it’ll be serving a semi-sacrilegious take on spaghetti carbonara – aka with cream – and a fried egg. There’ll also be a ‘Full Britalian’ breakfast on the menu, complete with fennel sausages, fried pizza dough, and Tuscan-style beans.
The restaurant opening is set for late April/early May, and will have space for 40 covers and boast a mid-century-style design, with green lino floors and pink-detailed banquettes.
Speaking about the concept, Richard explains the cafe is a tribute to the likes of Bethnal Green’s E Pellicci. ‘From the 1950s onwards, Italian-run cafés gave many Britons their first taste of Italian food, served alongside more familiar native dishes, and adapted to their tastes. Café Britaly wishes to rediscover that legacy and revitalise it in a way that’s resolutely modern with a tinge of nostalgia.’
When it comes to the more controversial dishes they might be serving, he added: ‘We don’t want to start any arguments – just conversations!’
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