Nevio Pellicci grins as he sets down a triangle of jam roly-poly in a square bowl welling over with custard. “I like you,” he announces, for the benefit of the cafe. “...Easily led.”
Pellicci — Nev to his regulars — is the cajoling sort. In the clamorous Bethnal Green cafe bearing his family name, E.Pellicci, refusing food is futile; it will arrive either way. Easier to acquiesce. “This is Elizabeth,” he says, nodding to a lady across the Formica. “Baker extraordinaire. Best hash brownies in the business. Just mind her hands under the table.” Nev winks at the blushing Elizabeth who, with her chatter of retired life, does not seem the handsy sort. She catches my eye and raises an eyebrow. Perhaps she is.
But Nev is already gone, gone as is possible in a 33-seat, seven-table place. Out go teas, coffees, slaps on the back, wisecracks to the regulars. Wisecracks to the first-timers. “Oh, she’s woken up!” he quacks at a deer-in-headlights student. “We thought you was conked out on mushrooms.” With sister Anna, it is a room run on quips and bickers, in an East End Hollywood would write. It is a land of finks and wotchas and ’avin a good ’eart, of cash-only but plenty that’s on the house. There are, they say, “quite a lot of naughty people that still come in”, says Anna. “But they’re good as gold in here.” They, alongside all the not-so-naughty sorts, come for the food, a mix of caff classics (a full English, fried scampi, liver with bacon) and Italian stalwarts (lasagne, penne with pesto, tiramisu). But really, they come for Nev and Anna.
“I’m not gunna treat you any different, whoever you are. Dad always said treat everyone the same, mum said give everyone a chance,” says Nev. “So we have,” says Anna. “Even West Ham supporters. Even south Londoners!” The pair are proud Spurs’ fans.
The wood-panelled E.Pellicci claims not just to be the oldest cafe in London but in the country. Nev, 47, and Anna, 51, are the grandchildren of original owners Priamo Pellicci and his wife Elide — the “E” — who took the place in 1900. Alongside their mama Maria, who’s cooked here for six decades, and cousin Tony, stone-faced till it crumbles into a solacing smile, the siblings have worked here, more or less, since they were kids. “I had five days at Leeds Uni,” says Anna, considering it. “Couldn’t hack the pole-dancing,” says Nev, with a poke. They learned their trade from sharply dressed dad, Nevio Sr, who built the place into an institution until his death in 2008. After decades of putting down portions of home-cooked chips to dip in the lasagne, now the pair are launching a podcast, Down the Caff. What else could it be called?
The draw is, by turns, a little of Nev and Anna’s endless, effortless ability to riff on nothing, and the celebrity diners they interview. The first series, out on May 19, features Ray Winstone, Annie Mac, Jessie Wallace and Tom Grennan, alongside Dexys Midnight Runners’ Kevin Rowland, unlikely social media star Grime Gran (144k followers and counting) and singer Hak Baker. The show is, says Nev, “a bit of everything: their relationship with food, what they eat when they’re away, their stories here.”
It builds on their social media success — their most-watched TikToks have more than 400,000 views — and their long-standing friendships with the famous regulars. Unsurprisingly, they “had a giggle” recording. Any memorable moments? “Ray farting all the time!” cackles Anna. What, really? “Nah, it was a joke, but George thought he really was,” chuckles Nev. “He was in the back with his head in his hands.” George is George Sexton-Kerr, the pair’s long-suffering producer, who they lovingly refer to as Kim, after Kim Jong Un.
Grennan, meanwhile, “told us some funny stories about his expensive poo on the tour bus — you’re not meant to, so it cost him two hundred quid”. Not everyone was as scatologically minded as Winstone and Grennan. “Hak told us some really beautiful stories,” Nev says. “He got quite personal. We grew up in the same area, the same estates, both did what we did as kids.”
“He didn’t learn guitar till he was in prison,” says Anna. “Reckons prison is probably the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Was it hard to find guests? For the first time, Anna appears slightly bashful. “Well, George pushed us. I felt a bit silly doing it cos, well, they’re celebrities and I didn’t think…” She stops. “I was so taken aback when every single one of them said, ‘Yup, no problem.’ Didn’t even hesitate. Touched. Really touched.”
Rowland, says Nev, “he’s been coming forever. A proper gent. He’s got his favourite seat and everything, but he’ll sit anywhere, talk with anyone. A bit eccentric, Kev. He’ll text me at 6am in the morning about a Sunday roast.” Winstone, meanwhile, “has been coming here since before we were here! Cos he’s that bit older,” says Anna. “A proper East End boy,” nods Nev. So why the shyness, I wonder? “We didn’t want people to think, ‘Whodya think you are, doing a podcast?’ ” says Anna. “We’re not up ourselves. We’re just Anna and Nev from the caff.” Not such a surprise, then, when Sexton-Kerr later confides it took him two years to persuade the pair to do the show. “Like herding cats, these two,” he says. “And course, you can’t keep them on topic.” How did they all meet? “Known George for years, usually turns up half-drunk on a Saturday,” says Anna. “And he’s just been pestering and pestering us about this.”
This series is all wrapped up, but, should it go well, there are hopes for another and vague talks of a book. They’ve got the crowd for it: other big names who’ve been in include Colin Farrell, Paloma Faith, Anna Friel, Dizzee Rascal and the Arctic Monkey’s Alex Turner. “Idris [Elba] pops in from time to time,” says Nev. “He’s a proper gent an’ all. And we’ve had Tom Hardy, course.”
“We didn’t know who he was at the time. He hadn’t cracked it yet,” remembers Anna. “And Guy Ritchie, he was in. Took bread pudding home for Madonna, when they were still married.” Owen Wilson, meanwhile, fared less well. “He walked in with a Brompton and I went, ‘only posh people spend 10 f***ing grand on a bike to carry it everywhere!’” she exclaims, still outraged.
They ‘had a giggle’ during recording. Any memorable moments? “Ray Winstone farting all the time!”
What is it, they think, that draws the punters, celebrities or not? It’s not unusual to see a queue before breakfast time. “Well, first of all, the food’s gotta be good, cos as lovely as a place is, if you give ‘em crap food — well, I wouldn’t come back,” says Anna. “But it’s our home, and I think that comes into it.”
“This is our front room, here,” says Nev. “People come in and say they love the energy of the caff, but we don’t know any different. We’re just friendly.”
Is there a sense that they’re preserving a long-gone East End way of life? “Yeah, I reckon so,” says Anna. “And I think it’s so important at the moment cos in London, people don’t talk to anyone anymore. Life’s so busy, so fast. One of the loveliest things in here is, people are forced to sit next to each other and because of that, nine times out of 10, people start chatting. So many friendships have been made here.”
They have, inadvertently or not, built not just a community, but a brand too, right down to the Pellicci merchandise on the walls. The Grade II-listed looks of the place, meanwhile, have given it cult appeal, and it’s long been a familiar sight on screen, from the Whitechapel series to Nowhere Boy to Krays biopic Legend, which featured it prominently, given the gangsters breakfasted here daily (“Mum says they were good boys, very polite,” says Nev, who would presumably get booted out of Bethnal Green for admitting otherwise).
There have been others, too. “Radiohead did a video, Harry Styles was in for one,” recalls Nev. “Oh, and we had Hellmann’s!” says Anna. “Oh yeah!” says Nev, perking up. Harry Styles and Hellmann’s. But of course. This is Pellicci’s — the ultimate leveller.
