Café Cecila’s hake, romero peppers and aioli | EUROtoday

I nonetheless have the images of the primary meal I ate at Café Cecilia in East London on my telephone. I went there after it opened in 2021. The younger Irish chef, Max Rocha, had labored at The River Café and Spring in London and I wished to see how his Irishness and the affect of those eating places got here collectively.

Oysters and Guinness bread had been on the menu, but it surely wasn’t the dishes themselves however the lack of fussiness that acquired me. No matter how usually eating places boast about conserving issues easy, few of them do. Here I had hake, silky roast peppers and aioli, three completely cooked parts on one plate.

Max’s hake, shared right here, re-orientated me, confirmed me how startling a dish this easy could be. Two of the parts could be made prematurely which suggests you solely have the hake to prepare dinner on the final minute. This makes it an ideal restaurant dish but it surely’s good for the house kitchen too.