Albion is retro caff at a retro price

Not that it matters. Albion has already been thoroughly discovered both by locals and those who trek to Shoreditch to shop and dawdle. These self-conscious folk favour buzzcuts and thumb rings, eccentric jackets and heavy-rimmed specs — although regular families seem to like it here too.

You enter via a little grocery store, itself more a display than a shop, with its preserves and quinces, though the bakery looks useful enough. Then you’re into a fine long room, busy, bright and warm, with a sizeable open kitchen. It’s one of those places that at once feels just right. There is buttermilk-painted tongue-and-groove, cream brick tiles, oak-veneered tables and chairs — the atmosphere is not just a bit Fifties but somehow a bit seasidey, too.

Great attention has been paid to the little details. Everywhere now is putting out the iconic ketchup and HP sauce bottles but here there are also lovely red enamelled coffee pots, old "bone-handled" knives stacked in empty treacle tins, a genuine samovar near the till, brown teapots in cosies, a creamware jug casually filled with purple anemones, proper heavy china ... It’s the works.

In comparison, the small chain Canteen, going for this Festival of Britain look, feels self-conscious and over-designed. And there the food, too, can be, in my experience, all too often a carefully prepared reminder why British cooking fell into such disrepute in the first place.

There are no such problems at Albion, where the short menu is prepared with obvious expertise by a sizeable brigade. It’s great for breakfast, as any caff should be — kipper, £5, kidneys, £7, say, or the healthy option of a beautifully presented big bowl of granola, accompanied by another bowl of yoghurt and a plateful of home-stewed fruit, including prunes and pear, also £5.

A great-tasting mushroom omelette (again, £5) had been made with a preponderance of whites to keep it light. Pots of good coffee are just £2, making a nonsense of Starbucks’ profiteering.

But Albion is equally excellent for a proper lunch or dinner. The main courses are all under £10 — shepherd’s pie, pork chop, fish and chips, fish pie ... Rib-eye steak (£9.75, the top price) was a large, thinnish cut, served quite pink when medium had been requested, but juicy and tender, really savoury with some fiercely hot Colman’s mustard from a new jar. As an unlisted extra, alongside it came a marrow bone, halved lengthwise and roasted just right, yielding lots of absolutely divine, salty, melting marrow, much more easily extracted than when the bones are sawed horizontally. Any swishy restaurant should have been proud to have delivered the like. At a caff, it seemed almost surreally good.

Beef dripping chips (£3) come in a bowl, golden, crisp, just what a chip should be. Likewise, mushy peas (£2) — a dark and inedible disaster at Canteen — were perfect, appetisingly flavoured, retaining some shape and texture, but also nicely softened and sloppy.

Service is friendly and quick without being aggressive. It feels comfortable to eat and drink only what you want here — perhaps just whitebait (£4) or crackling and apple sauce (just £1.25), to accompany a drink.

The short, rewarding wine-list opens with a Tariquet Côtes de Gascogne white at £2.75 for a 125ml glass, £3.75 for 175ml, or £15 a bottle, with a potent, aromatic Grenache-based Languedoc red at the same price, a fair match for any of the food.

One criticism: the butter. Downstairs it had been lovely, pale and creamy stuff, perhaps Charente, but up here it was bright yellow and even tasted very slightly turned, on two consecutive visits. Not an unfamiliar problem, nor one hard to solve — just an authenticity too far, maybe.

In every other way, Albion is just as much a demonstration of high professionalism by the Conrans and Peter Prescott as Boundary itself. And, for now at least, cheap as chips.

Albion
2-4 Boundary Street, E2 7JE