London Diaries: Men from boys

Putting my manhood to the test in deepest east London

Photo by Ajeet Panesar on Unsplash (so very much not the full English at Dino’s)

There is a place in east London where there are not men, there are blokes. A man and a bloke might on first glance seem to be the same thing, but that’s not true. The definition of a man is fluid and ever changing. You don’t have to like football and drink real ale to be a man. To be a man is to be whatever you want it to be. All men are men. But not all men are blokes.

I am a man, that isn’t up for debate. But equally obvious to me and the world at large is that I am not a bloke. A bloke is…hard to define. But you know a bloke when you see one. He’s in his comfort zone in a pub, preferably one that could be referred to as a boozer. He watches the football, he talks about the missus, when he needs a pee he goes to the lav. Really anything in life is the. He thinks the country has gone to the dogs and that working from home is just an excuse to sit in your pants and drink cans of pissy lager.

He and all his mates will most likely be found at Dino’s.

The world-famous Dino’s caff, as it is so lovingly referred to by entrepreneur-turned-catchphrase-spinner Tom Skinner, used to be on Crispin Street near Whitechapel. Right next to Spitalfields Fruit and Veg market, which has now moved to the outskirts of east London, to Leyton. Dino’s moved with it and has become an institution for the second time, despite being situated in a building that looks like the sort of place a body is dumped on Law & Order.

This is not my regular breakfast haunt. I am a man and not a bloke and so my breakfast isn’t usually a full English, or not on a regular weekday morning anyway. It’s sometimes porridge and sometimes Weetabix and sometimes bran flakes and is almost always eaten sat at my desk in my lovely cushy office building that doesn’t make me do any manual labour.

The breakfasts at Dino’s are fried, generally. Though that’s only if you want the full English. You can get all the things you’ve always dreamed of eating for breakfast here, but never actually thought would be a good idea. Up for selection at Dino’s are sunshine chicken curries (what makes it sunshine?), burgers so big just looking at them makes something clog, and full roast dinners. If it can be cooked and put on a plate it’s breakfast at Dino’s.

It’s Tom Skinner’s warm-hearted endorsements and the possibility of eating a curry for breakfast that brings three friends and I there early on a Thursday morning. They all have proper jobs so they are lovingly referred to here as The Saint, The Model, and The Doorknocker.

We are not Dino’s usual customers. Walking in through New Spitalfields, over vegetable detritus and dodging out of the way of forklift trucks, I regret my choice of footwear. I’m wearing the only pair of brogues within five square miles, I’m sure, though at least I haven’t brought a tote bag like The Model and The Saint. Workman’s boots and hi-vis are de rigueur here, though even if we owned hi-vis (and of course we don’t) we wouldn’t wear it here since we don’t want to be seen. These sort of blokes could eat us for breakfast if they weren’t too busy eating something else.

But be seen we are since we stick out like a fox at a hen party. We nearly don’t make it through the door. The building, as I’ve previously alluded to, is a little bit rough around the edges, and the only door we can find opens onto a staircase that looks ripe to be pushed down. “It can’t be upstairs,” I hear myself saying, though I’ve no idea why not. It is upstairs, obviously, and when we finally trudge in we’re greeted with friendly bemusement.

We stash the tote bags, sit in the corner, and look for a menu. Ah, there isn’t one. Or not that we can see. The men in hi-vis are at ease, they don’t look like they need a menu. They’ve been eating in this caff for many years and they will continue eating here for many years to come. We stand there like loose change, unsure what to do. Until The Model steps up.

“Do you do a full English?” he asks. Yes, comes the unsurprising reply. That’s great for The Saint and I, we pile right on in behind him. Stick the sunshine chicken curry, I want a full English. That’s an easy thing to order and it is breakfast, right?

But there’s a problem for The Doorknocker. He’s a vegetarian. Do they do vegetarian breakfasts? I can make you one, comes the reply. It’s not on the menu, clearly. Vegetarians are as rare as a pair of brogues at Dino’s.

Also rare are at Dino’s are women. There’s plenty of sausage in the room and it’s not just on the plates. They aren’t banned, it’s just that considering Dino’s less than salubrious surroundings and its usual clientele, it’s probably safe to assume that when it comes to women Dino’s is like a shared room in a hostel. Women are welcome, but most wouldn’t be seen dead here.

Though there is one, she works here, and brings us a plate of toast that, if it were representing the body of Christ, would suggest that the Son of God has visited Dino’s on more than one occasion. There’s practically a whole loaf of cheap white bread - the perfect fry-up accompaniment - dripping in butter.

Then the breakfast arrives. Gone are any wistful glances at the more adventurous plates of food in front of the blokes in the room, this is the breakfast of champions. All the usual suspects are present: sausage, bacon, fried eggs, baked beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. And chips.

You can tell the kind of establishment you are in by what form of potato accompanies its breakfast. Most middle-of-the-road brunch places stick to hash browns. They’re crowd pleasers and fairly standard. For the more arty-farty breakfast diner, a potato rosti perhaps. Unnecessary in my book but it allows the chef who’s been lumped with brunch to at least do something that isn’t flip meat in a pan. But your working-class, greasy-spoon, salt-of-the-earth breakfast potato? That’s a chip.

For the fifteen minutes or so it takes us to eat this behemoth all fears of ridicule are gone. While eating the full English at Dino’s we belong, we’re one of the boys, the blokes. We’re in a caff and we’re eating a full English and then we’ll go and do some bloody work. Sure that work might be more sitting down, typing emails and attaching spreadsheets, not the looked-down-upon but completely vital service of moving a shit ton of onions with a forklift truck. But we’re here and we belong.

Then we finish eating and the illusion fades. The blokes make light work of their huge breakfasts. This is a standard amount of food for a man who spends his day lifting heavy crates. For the brogues-wearing, tote-bag-carrying men, this amount of food this early in the day is enough to make something rupture.

Then a moment of panic. Do they take card? It doesn’t look like they take card. They didn’t even have menus. Do you have any cash? No, of course not. It’s London in 2024, no one has any cash. We picture being trapped in our little corner by a sea of hi-vis and workman’s boots, never to be seen again. In a few weeks all that will be left will be a tote bag blowing across the desolate car park at Spitalfields, a red stain on the edge that could be ketchup or could be blood.

Of course they take card. It’s still 2024 in Dino’s, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. We each pay. Nine pounds for the lot, a bargain, unless you’re The Doorknocker. It’s the same price for the vegetarian breakfast, naturally. We pick up our tote bags and wave to the staff. Thanks Dino, we cry, and they wave back and say thank you. Because they’re really all very nice here, it’s us that are silly.

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A request.

You may have seen that since January I’ve been writing travel guides on topics of my choice. Well recently I did an interview post with Samantha Childress over on her publication Caravanserai with Samantha Childress - and answering her questions got me thinking. Instead of me picking the topics to write about in my guides - I’d like you to ask me your travel questions. In each post I’ll pick a few and answer them. So, what travel question would you like answering? It can be an ask for tips, advice or just my take on something. Leave a comment below with your question.

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