Restaurant in London, United Kingdom
Neighbourhood feel, Michelin credibility, easy booking.
Café Deco is a Michelin Plate British Contemporary restaurant in Bloomsbury, priced at ££ and considerably easier to book than most London restaurants at its quality level. Chef Anna Tobias runs a weekly-changing seasonal menu with strong European wine pairings. For flavour-forward, unpretentious cooking with a genuinely interesting wine list, it is one of the better-value bookings in central London.
Café Deco is one of the better-value Michelin Plate restaurants in central London, and considerably easier to book than most of its peers. The cooking is seasonal British contemporary at a ££ price point, the service is warm rather than formal, and the wine list is more considered than the room's bistro feel suggests. If you want technically sound, flavour-forward food without the ceremony or the bill that comes with the city's ££££ bracket, this is a strong booking. The main misconception to correct before you arrive: this is not a café in any meaningful sense. The name undersells it.
Café Deco sits on Store Street in Bloomsbury, a short walk from the British Museum, and the location explains part of why it remains relatively off the radar for destination diners. The neighbourhood lacks the restaurant-district pull of Mayfair or Soho, which works in your favour: tables are genuinely easier to secure here than at comparable-quality venues across town.
Chef Anna Tobias runs a weekly-changing menu built around seasonal British produce with clear European influences. The format is deliberately unfussy. Dishes arrive looking simple, and the skill lies in the seasoning and the combinations rather than in architectural plating. That domesticity is intentional, and it is the thing most likely to wrong-foot a first-time visitor who expects Michelin Plate recognition to mean elaborate presentation. It does not here. What it means is that the kitchen understands its ingredients and knows when not to interfere with them.
The menu typically opens with shareable snacks — charcuterie, mussels in escabeche — before moving through starters that demonstrate a confident hand with acidity and seasoning: salt cod fritters with aïoli, artichoke vinaigrette, tuna with radish. Main courses are proportioned for appetite rather than aesthetics. A Spanish-influenced stew of sausage, morcilla, bacon and beans sits alongside lighter options like baked brill with potato. Desserts hold their own: crema catalana, rhubarb ice cream, and the kind of cake (chocolate and walnut, for instance) that reinforces the domestically confident register the kitchen operates in throughout.
Service involves the chefs directly. They bring dishes to the table and explain them without theatre. This is not a gimmick: it means questions about provenance or preparation get an informed answer rather than a rehearsed one, and it gives the room a quality of attention that larger restaurants with separated front and back of house rarely achieve at this price level.
The wine program at Café Deco is worth booking for in its own right, particularly if you approach it as a weekly-changing menu pairing exercise. The list skews European and shows real specificity in its selections: expect producers and regions that a list assembled for broad appeal would not risk. A Tarragona Macabeu-Muscat blend and a cherry-ripe Sicilian Frappato are the kinds of choices that signal a buyer with genuine curiosity rather than one filling categories.
For a wine-focused visitor, the combination of an adventurous, largely European list and a kitchen that changes weekly creates a pairing dynamic that rewards repeat visits. The food's emphasis on acidity, cured proteins, and assertive seasoning gives the wine list clear reference points to work from , the aïoli-heavy dishes, the escabeche, the morcilla stew all point naturally toward the kind of textural, mineral-edged European whites and medium-weight reds the list appears to favour. This is the kind of list where asking for a recommendation will produce a better result than picking by grape variety alone.
At the ££ price tier, it is unusual to find a wine program with this degree of considered selection. Restaurants in the ££££ bracket , CORE by Clare Smyth, Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library , offer deeper cellars and sommelier-led service, but Café Deco's list punches above its price category for the explorer who wants something interesting in the glass without the markup that comes with a tasting menu format.
For the broader Modern British and contemporary cooking category in London, see our full London restaurants guide. If you are exploring beyond restaurants, we also cover hotels, bars, wineries, and experiences across the city.
For British Contemporary cooking in a similar vein but different register, Anchor & Hope on the South Bank offers strong, produce-driven plates in an equally unfussy room. Apricity in Mayfair covers some of the same seasonal ground with a stronger sustainability focus and a more urban-cool aesthetic. Outside London, comparable sensibilities surface at Hand and Flowers in Marlow and hide and fox in Saltwood. For British Contemporary cooking in entirely different geographic contexts, Jaan by Kirk Westaway in Singapore and Dog and Gun Inn in Skelton demonstrate the range of the genre. At the three-star end of the British spectrum, The Fat Duck in Bray, L'Enclume in Cartmel, and Moor Hall in Aughton occupy a different register entirely. Gidleigh Park in Chagford is worth considering if you want a country-house format with comparable seasonal seriousness.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Café Deco | ££ | Easy | — |
| CORE by Clare Smyth | ££££ | Unknown | — |
| Restaurant Gordon Ramsay | ££££ | Unknown | — |
| Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library | ££££ | Unknown | — |
| The Ledbury | ££££ | Unknown | — |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | ££££ | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Café Deco measures up.
The weekly-changing menu at Café Deco is built around seasonal British and European cooking, which means the kitchen adapts frequently. Contact them directly before visiting if you have specific dietary needs, as menus shift every week and dish compositions change with them. The format here is closer to a bistro than a fine-dining operation, so the team is likely more flexible than a fixed tasting-menu restaurant would be.
The menu changes weekly, so do not arrive with a fixed idea of what you will eat. It holds a Michelin Plate (2025), which signals consistent cooking quality rather than a formal fine-dining experience. The room is small and intimate, the chefs often serve the dishes themselves, and the price range is ££, making it one of the more accessible Michelin-recognised spots in central London. It sits on Store Street, a short walk from the British Museum.
Because the menu rotates weekly, specific dishes cannot be guaranteed. Based on what the kitchen has been known to run: the salt cod fritters with aïoli are a strong starter if available, and main courses tend toward well-proportioned bistro fare like baked fish or hearty stews. Start with the nibbles or charcuterie, and leave room for dessert — the kitchen takes the sweet course seriously.
At ££ with a Michelin Plate, Café Deco sits in a bracket that is genuinely hard to find in central London. You are getting chef-driven, seasonal cooking at a price point well below what comparable recognition usually costs. For the area and the quality signalled by that award, it is good value.
Café Deco does not run a traditional tasting menu format. The kitchen operates more like a neighbourhood bistro with a short, weekly-changing à la carte. If you are looking for a multi-course structured tasting experience, CORE by Clare Smyth or The Ledbury are better fits. Café Deco is the right call if you want a relaxed meal with high cooking standards and no ceremony.
The room is simply furnished and the atmosphere is that of a neighbourhood bistro rather than a formal dining room. There is no indication of a dress code. Comfortable, casual clothing fits the setting without any issue.
The intimate format and chefs-serving-guests setup make it a reasonable choice for solo diners who want some interaction with the kitchen. At ££, the financial commitment for a solo visit is low relative to other Michelin-recognised restaurants in the area. It is worth confirming counter or bar seating availability when booking.
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