I visited this eatery about a month ago after an assessment in the area. Albion Café describes itself as selling:
Typical British caff food, nothing challenging or complicated, just straightforward hearty ingredients and recipes. First of all, some of the foods such as Rabbit stew are hard to find in most if not all British cafes. The menu includes breakfast served throughout the day, fish and chips, pies, sandwiches, puddings and fruit crumbles. Open all day for coffees, teas, English ales, juices, biscuits and cakes. The late-night menu includes Welsh rabbit, kedgeree and hot chocolate with shortbread.
Secondly, the food might be basic British but the prices are quite fierce. I had a full breakfast, a dessert of mixed berries and pastry with cream, a coffee, a grapefruit juice and a ginger beer. That little lot ended up costing me over £28.
It’s worth looking at prices in detail where I have them. In particular the breakfast came to a rather heavy £10.00. a typical greasy spoon will sell something similar for half that price so is the extra £5 really worth it?
My breakfast consisted of: one egg, 2 rashers of bacon, one sausage, a tomato cut in half, a large flat mushroom, black pudding, bubble and squeak and beans. I also got 2 slices of fresh bread and all the butter I needed.
The egg was fried and the yoke was hard. This is how I like it but that might not please everyone.
The bacon was of good quality and had quite a porky taste which I liked. It could have been thicker.
The sausage was certainly of good quality and better than most cafes have to offer but it wasn’t absolutely premium by any means. I have had similar quality sausages from the co-op where you get 8 Cumberland sausages for about 2 pounds. One sausage seemed a bit stingy to me as well.
The tomato was unremarkable. Just an average tomato cut in 2.
The flat mushroom was equally unremarkable.
The black pudding was spicy and it had a nice crumbly texture. This was pretty good quality and this was some of the best black pudding I have had in London.
The bubble tasted as though it had been made with coleslaw. It seemed to contain mainly mashed potatoes with cabbage that had a slight hint of vinegar to it. Not that nice at all I’m afraid.
The baked beans were also rubbish. They were quite hard like some of the cheapest brands of baked beans and they had a rather watery tasteless sauce.
The bread was fresh crusty bread which tasted really nice. It was sliced thick and generally quite satisfying.
So in general, this breakfast was a mixed bag with better than average parts to it. £10 seems far too much to pay for what you actually get. I think a price of £7 might have been more realistic though this is the top end of what I think the breakfast is worth.
The dessert was a bit of a disappointment. It was described as mixed berries with Chantilly cream and puff pastry. Chantilly Cream is whipped cream with added sugar and vanilla.
The berries and cream was separate to the puff pastry which came in a block like a small croissant. The pastry was rather tough and though it tasted ok the texture felt less than fresh. I would have thought the berries and possibly the cream would have been inside the pastry.
The coffee was fresh ground and of a decent quality. The ginger beer was just a standard bottle though the grapefruit juice came in a half pint glass making it quite generous compared to the small glasses of juice you often get with breakfasts in the UK.
I would have considered £20 or £21 acceptable for the amount I had if perhaps on the expensive side. I do not know what the other parts of the meal cost individually though I did get the waitress to go through it at the time to make sure that no mistake had been made.
Staff were generally quite helpful and prepared to go through the menu. At this price I would certainly expect nothing less.
More information including some sample menus can be found by visiting the website at http://www.albioncaff.co.uk/
Even the website has a pretentious name. the couple on the table next to me were in the process of selecting a honeymoon apartment in the Seychelles with a rep for example. Don’t pretend it’s a basic caff when it isn’t, it only makes it look more pretentious.
In brief, the food was quite good and staff were very helpful but the place is simply far too expensive. I can only give it 4 out of 10.
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