Dalston Lane Café

Happiness begins during and after breakfast at a greasy spoon.

The incomparable MoL tweeted the following earlier this month-

''A Little of What You Fancy. Sorry, East End chums. http://bit.ly/g21SU7''

Well the same goes for Dalston Lane Café. This post is dedicated to Rachel who made a comment here and recommended the place. To the well-informed residents of E8, you know (and I by now) that the breakfast of champions resideth ‘ere, so sincere apologies for spilling the Heinz about your well-kept secret. Now, I’m a serious advocate of the traditional fry-up, I’ve had this, that (but perhaps not this) and here, but none of them beats the Set4 at Dalston Lane Café.

Unlike the majority of cafés in Hackney, DLC is unusually neither Kurdish or Turkish owned. But like most greasy spoons, as soon as you step in you’re ‘Glaswegian kissed’ by the whiff of bacon cooking. My vegetarian dining companion very nearly scarpered, I duly sympathised as I would too if DLC was a dental surgery with its smell of formocresol.

The caff embraces natural daylight like good breakfasting deserves in the first place. The clientele are essentially the young assuring types, Hackney’s so middle class don’t you know! Please be reminded that it may become excruciatingly busy during the weekend.

DLC used to serve Sunday roasts, but they’ve since abandoned that as they’re already too preoccupied with dishing up their extraordinarily good all day breakfasts. As a food blogger, I don’t entertain pretensions and fastidious trends, but if one relishes in loosing the plot- I suppose you could put on your Gwyneth Paltrow hat and order the muesli, yoghurt and honey.

Veggie chum did manage to stay because of the Set3- consisting of bubble, beans, egg, and toast.

DLC offers fancy teas as well the builder's…2 and ¾ teaspoonfuls of sugar later, 'twas a most refreshing mug.

A most (smack on the wrist for repeating the word) feeble quibble; I’m not au fait with buttering me own toast!

Le Set4- fried egg, sausage, bacon, black pudding, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, tomato, beans, toast and catering portions of butter. Eggs can instead be poached or scrambled for an additional 20p and the same premium also applies to replacing the plain white toast with either crusty or granary bread.

Exhaustive use of adjectives and hyperbole(s) aside, Set4 accolades itself as the king of fry-ups. I know that fried bread’s missing but at least the overall satisfaction was down to the real English banger, proper back bacon, black pud, egg ‘over easy’ and bubble and squeak that’s better than your Mum’s. Who needs truffled egg toast or sliders when you can have all of the above and at a fraction of a price!

An additional order of French toast with yoghurt and jam. Lovely eggy toast, but order it with streaky bacon and maple syrup as it makes a lot more sense.

In the real world nothing’s ever perfect, the coffee served here is barely pedestrian. I suggest you pop over next door for an excellent cup of Union Hand-Roasted coffee and while you’re at it, grab a loaf of Hackney Wild sourdough bread.

Dalston Lane Café is yet another keen addition to the list of noteworthy (and affordable) eateries in Hackney, which incidentally pisses me off no end, as there’s the usual dearth of the above in my neck of the woods! A huge thumbs-up for DLC, happy breakfasting.




170 Dalston Lane
Hackney
E8 1NG