Fry-ups for £11. Turkey Twizzlers. Cod roe and Frazzles. It’s easy to see why there’s some discussion around Norman’s Café, Tufnell Park’s hipster answer to the greasy spoon.
Starting out as a COVID takeaway in 2019, Norman’s only opened its doors fully in July 2021, and has recently enjoyed a surge in popularity. In August, co-owner Elliott Kaye became something of an internet meme for serving beans on toast to his fellow guests on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch.
James Knappett is a two Michelin star chef and owner of Kitchen Table, where the tasting menu costs £300. In January he described Kaye and co-owner Richie Hayes as “friggin’ geniuses”.
It’s a strange time to open a café. First COVID, now the cost-of-living crisis means that independent cafés and restaurants, particularly those that don’t deliver are in danger of going under.
Even Mark Gatiss has joined the conversation, telling The Guardian recently that “I’m genuinely terrified that we are losing [the institution of] the caff for ever.”
Two years on from the café’s post-COVID al fresco opening in April 2021 , and with the buzz louder than ever, I thought it was the perfect time for my girlfriend and I to walk down to Norman’s and check it out for myself.
I spot the queue from all the way down the road. Taking my place alongside the gaggle of fellow twenty-somethings, I notice some taking photos next to the chalkboard menu in the window.
Nearly an hour later we’re finally in. It’s a small place – only seven or eight Formica tables. The gingham curtains only go halfway up the windows, but still manage to block out any semblance of 2023. In here it’s 1988.
A poster of Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup sits alongside one of the Guinness toucan. Behind me the fridge is well-stocked with cans of Stella, underneath them bottles of fancy wine – Norman’s turns into a wine bar on Friday nights.
I get up and move towards the small open kitchen at the back to order. I’m told I can sit back down – it’s table service.
I opt for the veggie breakfast, while my girlfriend goes for an English muffin filled with bubble & squeak, egg, cheese and homemade brown sauce, with a side of baked beans.
While we wait for our food the American couple next to us ask each other why they are called baked beans when they aren’t baked. I smirk, but it’s a good question.
I look around at the rest of the diners tucking in to their school dinner-fare, and it occurs to me that maybe this is all just a big joke, like I’m on a reboot of Candid Camera and the producers are going to come out and make me feel like a fool for acting like any of this is normal. I’ve never subscribed to the idea of the North London liberal elite before, but now I’m starting to wonder…
For what it’s worth, the food is nice. The beans have been slow cooked with cream. The cheese-fried bubble goes perfectly with the premium egg. The hash brown sprinkled with Maldon sea salt is complemented by the homemade brown sauce. It’s pricey at £27 for both of us, but the ingredients are premium.
But is this what London is now? Faux-working class novelty eateries designed to remind their clientele of the childhood they probably never had?
The short answer is no. At least, not yet. On my way home I pop into Moonlight, the greasy spoon just down the road that has been serving Tufnell Park since 1959, to get a taste of the food I spent most of my childhood bugging my mum for.
It’s deserted, save for three guys in hi-vis, their jackets the same colour as the cheese in their burgers. I’m feeling healthy, so I go for eggs, bubble, hash brown, chips, veggie sausage, beans and toast. With a tea. £6.50. Wow.
It’s good as well. The beans aren’t homemade, but then again you get more than a couple tablespoons. The hash browns? The same as Norman’s. The bubble? Better. And chips? Brilliant.
I sit there and wonder why they don’t up their prices, especially when manager Ram Soyner tells me that business is not great.
“It used to be very good. Now it’s very bad. Since coronavirus, it’s very slow,” he says. “Rent, electric, gas. Everything is now very expensive.”
I ask whether the downturn has anything to do with Norman’s opening down the road, but he’s dismissive.“It’s not a café,” he tells me. “The people who go there are students and kids. The people who come here are builders and families.”
He’s right. I suppose the ideal scenario is that both can exist, catering for different crowds. At the moment, though, it seems far more likely that fish eggs and bacon-flavoured crisps will triumph over £6.50 giant slap-up meals.
