Pellicci’s and the Krays
English Heritage have performed a first, awarding Grade II listed building status to Pellicci’s cafe in Bethnal Green.
“To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure what it meant at first,” said owner Nevio Pellicci, who was born upstairs in 1926. “A young lady came round and was looking at the place. I asked her if it was going to be to my advantage or not. Of course, I am very proud.”
Pellicci’s a rare survivor
English Heritage described Pellicci’s as stylish, intact and architecturally strong with a rich deco-style panelled interior. “The 1950s cafe is becoming increasingly rare and the recent proliferation of chain coffee shops is threatening their economic viability,” said a spokesman. Pellicci’s is described as a rare example of the stylish Italian cafe that flourished in London in the inter-war years.
So can a deco cafe resist the rise of Starbucks? There were once 2000 of the cafes, but only some 500 are thought to remain.
The Krays come for tea
The Pellicci family arrived from Tuscany, buying the cafe at the turn of the twentieth century, and Nevio has no worries about the future. His son, Nevio junior, works in the cafe and says they still do a roaring trade.
“A lot of my original customers are dead, of course,” muses Nevio Sr. But a lot of my customers now were schoolkids when they first came here. I would serve them chips and beans. Now their children come here. It’s terrific. It feels like home to them.”
The Krays lived just around the corner in Vallance Road of course … Mr Pellicci has only good memories.“They were children when I started serving them. They were very respectful, charming. If my mother was behind the counter and someone swore they would ask them to show some respect.”
Campaign to save the cafes
Adrian Maddox, runs a website devoted to the preservation of cafes like Pellicci’s, and wants more listed. “This is an amazing moral victory and hugely cheering; at last someone is taking notice of this type of architecture. Pellicci’s is one of my top cafes of all time,” he says.
Maddox charts the disappearance of the cafes to the eighties when the big chains started arriving. The decline has only increased with, it sometimes seems, a coffee chainstore on every corner.
“These cafes have a whole secret history,” says Maddox. “They tell a story, of the wave of Italian immigrants who came here and brought their culture with them. They incubated a whole sub-culture of music, fashion, film, sex, crime.”