"Last year I stumbled upon a green-colored cookbook and fell in love. This summer, I knew I had to make my way to Hackney. Each year the L.A. Times Food section combs through dozens upon dozens of cookbooks to bring you an end-of-year guide to the best of them, and in 2024, Café Cecilia's was one of my undeniable favorites. Chic and full of accessible recipes for the kinds of dishes I'd like to eat year-round, it introduced me to chef-owner Max Rocha's Irish-by-way-of-Italy-and-France restaurant."
"My cousin, my friends and my partner and I all filed in at a long wooden table adjacent to the semi-open kitchen and had one of my best meals of the year: sage and anchovy fritti, the batter airy and crisp; mutton croquettes, fried to golden and dunked in mustard sauce; buttery in-shell scallops with peas and lardo; a plank of sugarcoated fried pudding with a moat of custard."
A green-colored cookbook prompted a visit to Café Cecilia, a light-dappled restaurant along Regent's Canal in Hackney. Chef-owner Max Rocha blends Irish roots with Italian and French influences, producing accessible, year-round dishes. The meal featured sage and anchovy fritti, mutton croquettes with mustard sauce, buttery in-shell scallops with peas and lardo, and a sugarcoated fried pudding with custard. Rocha left the music industry to train at St. John and the River Café. The restaurant is marking four years and the cookbook has become popular, with people calling to ask about recipes.
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