S & M (Sausage and Mash) Cafe - Essex Road

S & M Café, short for Sausage and Mash, offers tasty and imaginative variations, as well as good versions of the original, on the theme of the genuine English breakfast, specialising naturally in London traditional sausage. S & M Cafe - Portobello, the original of all the S & M's currently in London, outlawed the deep fat fryer, as well as reviewing the contents and quality of what went under the grill and other more health-relevant bits of equipment.

So it's out with the grease, chaps, and in with premium sausages, herbal teas, vegetarian compilations and cranberry juice. Which is not to say that you are left powerless to tuck away a good breakfast at midday, should you feel so inclined, though by that time you have to accept the All-Day-Breakfast, consisting of London traditional sausage, free range egg, mushroom, beans, tomato, bubble and squeak and toast. The veggies strike back with the All-Day-Veggie version, which is as above but excluding all the naughty bits.

Then there is the gourmet sausage range, including the gamekeeper, with venison and red wine, and wild boar with apple and cider, and the counties version called the Cumberland and Lincolnshire.

They also have some decent bottled beers and the like, with, amongst the soft drinks, a mysterious range of beverages called Fentiman's drinks that owe their genesis to botanic brewing. There's also delicious Victorian lemonade, said to be - wait for it - sausage friendly - the ultimate accolade!