Brilliant British flavour

We British have such a peculiar relationship with our own cuisine. We have lost sight of it in a spineless acceptance of traduced versions of other people's food. We go to a pub and dither between ordering Tex-Mex fajitas, Thai green curry or gnocchi with pesto.

When Best of British is seized upon as a catering concept - as it was for Roast in Borough Market - the effort comes across as self-conscious, precious, slightly Epcot and vaguely disorientating, as in "If Routemasters have been scuppered, why are we eating grilled ox heart with curly kale?"

Canteen, situated beside another historic market, that of Spitalfields, has an altogether cooler approach.

Acknowledging that some enticing items of English cooking reside in an English breakfast, the all-day service allows you to order, say, black pudding, bubble-andsqueak with fried egg, baked eggs with smoked haddock and spring onions, Cumberland sausage with roast onion sandwich, or just toast and home-made marmalade all day long.

Roasted joints and birds, enough for four to six people, can be ordered in advance. The wherewithal for a threecourse meal includes casually delicious, unforced assemblies that should - and can - comprise our natural gastronomic underpinnings.

The dinner we chose illustrates that last sentence. A first course of devilled kidneys on toast was wonderful - the kidneys tender, the creamy sauce into which they had released their ace gravy-making potential was piquant but not taste-bud numbing, the sogged toast had tough edges providing textural variety. Potted duck with piccalilli was served in two glass screw-top jars.

Potted meat - the British riposte to pâté - was unctuous but not fatty and the piccalilli, made in-house to a recipe of head chef and food director Cass Titcombe, was subtle in its marinade, not lagged, as it usually is, in a floury, turmeric-yellow blanket.

Pie of the day, served with mash, spring greens and gravy, was chicken, ham and mushroom, and for £9 provided an eminently satisfying plateful.

Gammon with parsley sauce is a dish I often cook at home because I really like it and because you seldom find it in restaurants. Here the ham could have been cured a bit more radically and also been easier to cut but the thin, creamy sauce with freshly chopped parsley flung in at the last minute (as it must be) was more than enough consolation.

A side order of watercress-and-onion salad had boisterous, peppery leaves and red onion, cut so finely that it didn't intrude, just alluded to the sweetness below its surface.

A dessert of the day, blood orange jelly served with shortbread, was much appreciated by its recipient, although I thought a little less gelatine would have improved it. I loved the soft fudginess of treacle tart, which was served with clotted cream with a nice nip of acidity.

A lot of careful thought has obviously gone into Canteen. The stylishly restrained look of the place, with its open kitchen and glazed aspect onto what will soon be revealed when the new development by Foster and Partners is integrated with the old market; the elements of communal eating and comfortable eating that suggest a harmonious relationship between work and play, and the unshowy approach to well-bought produce taken down well-trodden paths could be compared in lots of ways to the ethos of The River Cafe. But here prices are blessedly reasonable.

Even a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvée at £95 is not much more than you pay retail. I might go back and toast Canteen and 2006 with it.

Canteen
Canada Square, London, E14 5AH