Canela

Time Out says

Wed Aug 1 2012

Most of the menu at this little Brazilian/Portuguese café is on show in the cold cabinet, including quiches, salads, Brazilian cheese bread, and the likes of vegetarian lasagne or meatballs in tomato sauce waiting to be heated up. Half the space is taken up with puddings and cakes, such as the chocolate mud cake (served warm) or the classic Portuguese custard tart. There’s also soup of the day, plus dishes such as Mozambique chicken curry (a rather dull, one-note dish, served with rice) and the excellent Brazilian version of feijoada (a stew of black beans and smoked meats, here served with rice, farofa – toasted manioc flour – and what resembles a chunky version of pork scratchings). Soft drinks include fresh mint tea and juices, plus Guaraná and other fizzy options, and, of course, coffee. In the daylight Canela’s small red and black premises look slightly in need of a spruce-up, but at night the Portuguese wines and caipirinhas come into their own and the chandelier and the huge gilt mirror look less out of place. Staff are charming, whatever the hour.