Café De Melo, on Leyton High Road in east London, is much like any greasy spoon across the country. The menu spans the classics: English breakfast, bacon baps, eggs in all their variations. Regulars pop in for a coffee or chat to the waitress over beans on toast. At under £7, the full English is accessibly priced.
But a blackboard points to things you won’t find in a traditional English cafe – feijoada (black bean stew), vaca atolada (beef and cassava stew) and picanha (rump beef). They hint at the owner’s background. Brazilian-born Elizeu Cabral de Melo used to own a jewellery shop on the same site but two years ago put his lifelong love of cooking into practice. Yet he didn’t open a solely Brazilian restaurant, despite there being many Brazilian locals. “I didn’t want to be restricted to one type of clientele,” says Cabral de Melo. “A lot of my friends are English, so I wanted it to be Brazilian and English.”
