Restaurants

By Will Fulford-Jones

Readers of a certain age, especially those with a developed interest in post-war kitsch, will recognise the face from a thousand ’70s living rooms. The name, though, is another story. The foxy Latino lady with the eyes that follow you round the room has gloried in her oil-painted anonymity for decades. But the folks behind this new enterprise have at last revealed her identity, paying homage to their wanton heroine both on the walls and in the name of their sunny little corner café.

Tina, We Salute You started life as a cupcake stall at Brick Lane’s Sunday Upmarket, but set up permanent shop on the fringes of Newington Green and Dalston in February. It’s a tribute to the likeable chaps behind the counter that it already feels like it’s been there for ages, drawing a chatty community of locals who’ve been waiting a while for the café-shaped gap in their market to be filled. With most of the seating around a communal table, usually topped with the day’s newspapers and a laptop or two (there’s free wi-fi), space is at a premium, yet it’s never a squeeze.

Caffeine is taken seriously, with roasts from Square Mile fed through a covetable La Marzocco machine. The menu is short, but the basics are covered tidily and at very fair prices: generously filled sandwiches and bagels (from Brick Lane Beigel Bake), breakfast munchies (granola, thick-sliced toast, lovely preserves made in the neighbourhood; plus, at weekends, pancakes), crumpets (crumpets!) and splendid home-made cupcakes, supplemented with a changing range of other treats (flapjacks, bakewell tarts, Victoria sponge). The handwritten names on the back wall constitute the café’s delightfully off-beam approach to a loyalty-card scheme. Tina, wherever she is now, should feel quite proud.

Time Out London Issue 2017: April 16-22 2009