Marie’s has all the hallmarks of a post-war Britalian caff — striking signage, a Vitrolite ceiling, a Formica-topped cabinet — mainly because it used to be one. But when the place changed hands in the 1980s and a new family took over, it gained another string to its bow: a range of homely Thai soups, curries and noodle dishes, available for the same affordable price as its fry-ups. 

Even the cooked breakfasts at Marie’s are Thai-inflected, with eggs as crispy and frilly-edged as the khai dow at Plaza Khao Gaeng. Standout dishes include the place’s massaman and yellow curries, which are dramatic, fragrant plates of food, with peeled potatoes smaller than most grapes. The restaurant draws a weekday lunchtime crowd of office workers and high-vis types alike, then gets a lot busier in the evenings, when an expanded menu is served and diners can bring their own booze. To dodge the crowds, visit earlier in the day, or pop in for a steadying meal before a Waterloo train journey.

Tucked away beneath the shadow of Rotherhithe Tunnel and ​​St Olav’s Norwegian church, H’s Cafe serves bacon rolls that rank among the city’s best: where fat mixes with sauce to form a delicious, mouth-coating emulsion; where the crusty rolls have the chewiness of great croissants and the crackly exterior of a crème brûlée.

The place attracts a steady stream of solo diners, who make good use of the garden area and greet staff by name. Inside, it’s all chalkboard menu, faded laminated printouts and framed pictures of various Millwall squads. It’s a stripped-back caff, with a similar shack-like feel to Frank’s Sandwich Bar in West Kensington, where the counter doubles as an open kitchen. It’s a basic room, where food is fried and eaten.

Beyond Burgess Park, where Camberwell dissolves into Walworth, there’s a few historical places where people hang out: a 1930s pub, a century-old pie and mash shop, and Mary’s Cafe, which opened four years before man landed on the moon. The place has an eclectic, old-fashioned menu, with unusual options like duck eggs, spotted dick, and an Irish breakfast, which includes white pudding and excludes baked beans. Like a Scottish breakfast, the Irish at Mary’s is a reminder that fried breakfasts are really just a whole lot of pork, fried and arranged on a plate.

It’s worth eating all that pork at Mary’s because of the quality of its meat. The white pudding is a hockey puck of oaty, bloodless fat with a hint of offal; the sausages are real too — plump, herb-speckled things like the ones at E Pellicci and Regency Cafe. At lunchtime, the steak and kidney pie comes softened beneath a puddle of gravy, its pastry casing filled to the brim with tender chunks of beef.

Something Fishy is a peculiar kind of chip shop, in that it opens at 9 a.m., closes before dinner, and is all about eating in. Interestingly, this sit-down chippy’s menu also extends well beyond traditional battered fish and deep-fried potato fare, to include fry-ups, sandwiches, and even pie and mash. So Something Fishy is an all-purpose, Swiss Army knife of a restaurant, which caters to all the people visiting and working in Lewisham Market. Since it’s so affordable, Something Fishy is a place where customers should push the boat out. Don’t settle for a hunk of fish and a mountain of chips; get the gravy, some gherkins, a pot of curry sauce, a battered sausage, and a crunchy disc of cod roe.

If Rolando Pujol, a nostalgia obsessive who unearths fossils of the American roadside, were to come to London, he’d probably make a beeline for Bexleyheath. Why? Because it’s home to a beautiful anomaly, the only Wimpy in the capital spared a remodelling job, which has kept its remarkable 1990s interior intact. Counterintuitively, Wimpy Bexleyheath also feels more loved than its 19 refurbished cousins, which can be found in places like Streatham, Bermondsey and Watney Market. The restaurant occupies an extraordinary, mirror-filled room, with cushioned fixed seating and dramatic moulded plastic booths, with the same colour scheme as the opening sequence of Saved by the Bell. The staff are friendly and attentive too, offering table service with a smile.

Wimpy burgers are basically burger van burgers, mass-produced versions of the ones at football matches. So eating at a Wimpy is a uniquely un-American experience, in contrast to McDonald’s and Burger King, with vinegar on every table and burger sauce always close at hand; chips are chips, not “fries”. Fascinatingly, this specific Wimpy has regulars too: on weekday evenings, groups of people chat over soft drinks, as if they’re at the pub.

A stone’s throw from Anerley Station, between Crystal Palace and Penge, is one of London’s last great sandwich caffs. It’s a homely, hole-in-the-wall of a place — no bigger than a phone box really, with a few stools to sit on, where visitors can set the world to rights with the place’s affable proprietor. Unusually for a caff, the owner is a Frenchman, who took over in the early 2000s, a decade after it opened.

Like Randolfi in Bow, it pays to order something old-fashioned at Tony’s Lunchbox, such as the corned beef, which comes in thick, generous slabs, sliced from a crumbly, fat-speckled block. The place’s ageing letter board displays a greatest hits of anachronistic sandwich fillings, like “ocean stix” and liver sausage, all with prices hovering around the £3 mark. The day’s specials — such as pork loin and spicy meatballs — sit like homespun potluck dishes behind the curved glass counter, wrapped in cling film and labelled with handwritten Post-its. 

By virtue of being a retired Spudulike, this caff may be one of the oldest in Kingston, with its current owners suggesting it could be more than 50 years old. But the interior has been mostly refurbished, so only fragments of this oldness remain. Still, those remnants are fascinating: its Blodgett potato oven and lightly serifed green signage are particularly striking, as are the beautifully dated, backlit photographs behind the counter. Jacket potato-wise, go for classics like tuna and cheese or cheese and beans, which the place’s proprietor confirms are his most popular. But visitors will want for nothing, with no less than 30 different baked potato fillings on offer, ranging from cottage cheese to chili con carne.