Valtaro Snack Bar

I’ve read some great reviews of this place elsewhere and had it recommended by friends — so as I am currently living a few hundred yards away I thought I should give it a try.
The fry up was way below average, nowhere near as good as the one I used to have at the Amhurst Café in Hackney when I lived there. And they gave me burnt toast! Seriously! If you burn the toast you do NOT give it to a customer!
Maybe they’re normally better than this but they’ve lost a lot of business from me by serving me rubbish on my first visit.
And despite other reviews I saw saying that the staff were friendly, on this occasion they were anything but. They weren’t unfriendly to me, but weren’t particulary friendly either. And, hey, listen — you don’t swear in front of customers no matter what. It’s just not right.

These guys are amazing. I’ve been eating here for 5 years. Hugeeee portion of fresh made to order pasta for £3.

Valtaro is a greasy spoon café on Marchmont street. There is a large green awning, under which is outside seating. Inside, on the left, there is counter seating which wraps around three walls. There is a food counter immediately before you as you come in.
The food is typical greasy spoon and very cheap. The food is incredibly standard; an egg sandwich is literally two pieces of bread and a fried egg. In general I would stick with the egg, bacon, chips etc. which are good. Due to its prices it is very popular with students as well as builders and other usual greasy spoon patrons.
Whilst not remarkable, it is really cheap, the people are friendly and has a shabby charm.

Small local friendly greasy spoon where customers sit and stare at the pub opposite and eat pasta or chips and sip builders’ tea. This café is a lovely original, traditional London local, beloved of students and locals alike. It is very small, so probably best to avoid lunch times when it is indeed a workers’ café.

Valtaro Café in Bloomsbury is retro at its very best, however, it verges on the bland and tasteless side of retro and the food echoes this. I had a tuna and mayo sandwich, not too difficult to get wrong you may think, and there isn’t that fine a line between getting the ratio of tuna and mayo just right but they had seriously missed it by a mile.
Marchmount street is a pretty street and I can image the outside seating in summer might tempt a customer to eat at the café. The price of food is also extremely reasonable for central London. However, it was winter, it was cold and the café was empty and despite the encouraging smiles from the non-​English speaking staff (we had had difficulties earlier when they tried to guess my order from my wild gestures at the tuna and then the mayo) I took my sandwich to go.

A local institution so beloved that I am almost loath to encourage people to go here! From the outside, Valtaro appears to be a no-​frills greasy-​spoon of a kind which is ten-​a-​penny in London, and to a certain extent this is absolutely correct. You’ll be hard pressed to spend more than a fiver here, there is no toilet, almost no seating and variants on the Full English Breakfast occupy over half of the menu. It is for their pasta, however, that Valtaro has achieved fame and cult-​status among the students of the three nearby University of London halls. Generous portions of great tasting fresh pasta creations will fill you up for a gob-​smackingly small amount of money, and there is no better hang-​over cure than sitting outside Valtaro in the bright Saturday morning sunshine, people-​watching in this lovely secluded part of Bloomsbury, with a great pile of steaming pasta and a cup of tea so strong you could almost stand your spoon up in it! Of all the great restaurants, homely pubs and trendy wine bars I have introduced friends to, Valtaro is the place that people most ask me if I will take them to again.
If you don’t believe me, just observe the number of black cabs parked outside this place at lunchtime. Cabbies have the pick of the city for their lunch and any joint with more than its fair share of their distinctive vehicles outside is usually worth a try Valtaro certainly is.