The story
Café Cecilia is a modern cuisine restaurant at Canal Place, 32 Andrews Road, Dalston, London, and holds a Michelin Recommended listing for 2026. It sits on a side street off Broadway Market, and breakfast, lunch and dinner all run from the same small kitchen.
Chef and owner Max Rocha named the restaurant after his grandmother, Cecilia. His training includes St John Bread & Wine, the River Café and Spring. The cooking of his mother, Odette, in Ireland shaped much of what he serves. Before opening, he catered art and fashion shoots.
The Good Food Guide 2026 rates the restaurant Good and points to rustic dishes with Anglo-Irish overtones. Breakfast might be kippers, or boiled eggs with Guinness bread. Later in the day come pork and apricot terrine, calçots with romesco, skate with spinach, brown butter and capers, or mussels with 'nduja and wholegrain polenta. For dessert, the deep-fried bread and butter pudding comes with cold custard.
The dining room is a small, square, canteen-style space that fills with light during the day. Service is plain and unfussy. Guinness bread, a signature of the menu, has its own chapter in Rocha's Café Cecilia cookbook, where it turns up again in a treacle tart and an ice cream.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
It may be holed up on a charmless side street off Broadway Market, but this neighbourhood hangout is manna for Hackney’s cool young crowd. It helps that chef/owner Max Rocha has a famous father (Hong Kong-born fashion designer John Rocha), an inspirational Irish mother and a culinary CV that includes big hitters St John Bread & Wine and the River Café. Friends and family count for a great deal here (the titular Cecilia is Max's grandmother), and the menu is stuffed with inviting platefuls for regulars and first-timers alike – sandwiches, kippers or boiled eggs with Guinness bread for breakfast, say. Later on, visitors can expect a roll call of rustic dishes with Anglo-Irish overtones and some European influences, from pork and apricot terrine or calçots with romesco to skate with spinach, brown butter and capers or mussels with 'nduja and wholegrain polenta. If you fancy something for afters, the deep-fried bread and butter pudding with 'cold custard' is exceedingly tempting. The setting is a small, square canteen-style room with plenty of light during the day, while service comes without frills or posturing – just as it should be. Image: Maureen M. Evans
Location
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