MELI-MELO le bistro-café (Walthamstow)

You walk past the window on Hoe Street and it feels like you've accidentally stumbled into someone's Parisian neighbourhood spot—the kind of place where regulars have their usual table and the staff actually know your name. It's intimate without feeling cramped, with that warm lighting that makes you want to linger over coffee for hours. The menu reads like a love letter to French bistro classics: you're getting proper technique in the kitchen, not Instagram theatre. Prices won't bankrupt you either, which is refreshing when everywhere else in East London's gone mad.