Le Café Anglais Oyster Bar & Café

Rowley Leigh’s spectacular art deco Le Café Anglais was always a spacious & roomy affair, but a 2010 refit has seen part of the restaurant updated as a sleek, all-day café & oyster bar that can comfortably seat 50 on stools at the marble counter or in a handful of intimate red leather booths. The mix-&-match menu majors in a wide array of seafood, from tight, meaty Maldon native oysters to winkles, whelks, prawns & dressed crab. Seafood sandwiches are available at lunch, & a clutch of hot dishes continues the theme – shellfish bisque, crab linguine & excellent griddled scallops with pea purée, plus smooth, buttery omelettes or steak & chips for committed carnivores. The brief, white-heavy & almost exclusively French wine list is a good match for the food. Handy if you need a break from the Whiteleys’ shopping haul or fancy a pre-cinema fill-up.