Down with the chains and long live independent cafes

PROPER Food, they call it on the noticeboard outside. That is to distinguish the menu from the fake food outlets that have sprung up across the City like Indian balsam or Japanese knotweed on a riverbank. 

- Melanie McDonagh

This little Italian cafe on Foster Lane has the characteristic menu of its type: a top row of baps, rolls and sliced bread plus pastries, set over an array of sausages and bacon, with the sandwich options of prawn mayo, egg mayo, tuna and sweetcorn, coronation chicken and rosy roast beef.

At lunch, there are salads, lasagne, soup. It's normal food, intelligible food, produced for people with appetites by people who treat customers like they're glad to have them.

It's one of just three similar little cafes I can think of on roughly my route through the City. Another, Alfredo's, is tucked away in a little alley. And I've just been to the Cafe Verona for a custard tart from a lady who beamed at me.