The glory of Formica and fry-ups

Pellicci's in Bethnal Green is not your average greasy spoon, and that's not only because it has just been awarded Grade II listing by English heritage for its Art Deco interior or that it has been owned by the same Italian family since 1900.

I had just sat down for a cuppa and slice of apple pie when a local three-year-old broke into song, anxious to show off her latest nursery rhyme. The tardis of a cafe, full to the brim with locals, trendy artists and media executives, fell silent. Then the applause was spontaneous.

But the toddler wasn't the only proud one, yesterday. Nevio Pellicci Jr, who has worked in his father's kitsch cafe since he's been in long trousers, said: "We are over the moon about this listing. We've worked hard, but we love what we do."

Nevio Jr is 22. His grandfather, the first Nevio Pellicci, left his poor Tuscan village in 1900, part of the first wave of Italian immigrants, setting up Pellicci's as an ice-cream parlour, in the same year.

Pellicci's wife, Elide, commissioned Achille Capocci, one of the East End's many Italian carpenters, to create the award-wining marquetry, and had him carve her initials into the panelling. Their son, today's Nevio Pellicci Sr, was born in 1925.

"I was born upstairs," he says. "There were about seven of us back then, brothers and sisters, and we all lived here very happily in just the two little rooms. Me and my brothers had a few cafes around the area and we all worked in them. I finished up with this little one."

Nevio Sr met his wife Maria at the cafe. She was working in the kitchen, as she still does, and it soon transpired she came from his village. Nevio Jr and his sister Anna, 25, who also works in the cafe along with one of their cousins, will take over the business when their parents retire.

Reg and Ronnie Kray once frequented the local landmark, built in 1946. "Pellicci's is a palimpsest of caff history," says Edwin Heathcote, author of London Caffs. "It's The Savoy of the caff world. It survived the rise of the espresso-bar and froffy-coffee eras, and the kind-to-their-mums gangsterism of the 1960s.

"It may have Hollywood Deco motifs and veneered panelling, but it's as current as it was in its Fifties heyday," says Heathcote. "Real and neocockney meet on its Formica tabletops, over a cuppa."

A flick through the family scrapbook proves that the Krays ("yes, they always paid") are just two in a line of celebrities happy to pay homage. Nevio Jr's cousin Tony talks me through the entries. "Look, there's a letter from Robbie". That's Robbie, as in Williams. "Twas delicious", the note reads.