I still have the photographs of the first meal I ate at Café Cecilia in East London on my phone. I went there after it opened in 2021. The young Irish chef, Max Rocha, had worked at The River Café and Spring in London and I wanted to see how his Irishness and the influence of these restaurants came together. 

Oysters and Guinness bread were on the menu, but it wasn’t the dishes themselves but the lack of fussiness that got me. No matter how often restaurants boast about keeping things simple, few of them do. Here I had hake, silky roast peppers and aioli, three perfectly cooked elements on one plate. 

Max’s hake, shared here, re-orientated me, showed me how startling a dish this simple can be. Two of the components can be made in advance which means you only have the hake to cook at the last minute. This makes it a perfect restaurant dish but it’s good for the home kitchen too.