Fiona MacLeod On Why The Brick Lane Institution Is A Useful Introduction To London’s Relationship With Novelty, Nostalgia, And The Eleven-Pound Bowl Of Cereal
Written for visitors and filed with Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. London satirical journalism is one of the things that will help you understand the city; the Cereal Killer Cafe is another, in a different register.
The Cereal Killer Cafe has reopened on Brick Lane, and if you are visiting London for the first time, I recommend it not primarily for the cereal – though the cereal is fine, and there is a great deal of it – but as an introduction to how London thinks about its own culture. The cafe, which charges approximately eight to twelve pounds for a bowl of cereal served in a neon-lit room decorated with 1990s memorabilia, has been, since it opened in 2014, simultaneously celebrated and mocked, loved and satirised, and consistently full of people who made a deliberate decision to visit it. This is very London.
What The Cafe Is Actually Like
The cafe occupies a small shopfront on Brick Lane, roughly in the middle of the stretch between the Overground station and the junction with Bethnal Green Road. The interior is dense with nostalgia objects: cereal boxes, VHS tapes, 1980s and 1990s branded items. The menu is the cereal menu, which is genuinely extensive and genuinely global – you can order cereal from multiple countries, including some that are difficult to find in UK supermarkets. The seating is tightly packed. There is usually a queue on weekend mornings.
The Price In Context
Eleven pounds for cereal is, in the abstract, a lot for cereal. In the context of London hospitality pricing, it is about what you would pay for a breakfast at a central London cafe. You are paying for the experience, the location, and the novelty, which is the honest description of most London restaurant pricing at this tier. If this bothers you, the Brick Lane Beigel Bake is approximately ninety seconds’ walk away and will sell you a salt beef beigel for about three pounds, which is one of the great London food value propositions and has been since before most current London food trends were conceived.
Brick Lane While You Are There
Brick Lane repays an hour of walking. The southern end, near Whitechapel, has the highest concentration of Bangladeshi-British restaurants and food shops. The northern end, toward Shoreditch, has become progressively more oriented toward tourism. The middle stretch, where the Cereal Killer Cafe sits, is the transition zone. The Sunday market at the Brick Lane market complex (off Cheshire Street) is excellent for vintage clothing and food stalls. Go before noon. Per Time Out London, the market trades from approximately 10am to 5pm on Sundays.
More: The Daily Mash. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
