One of the biggest challenges for any restaurateur is expectation management: “If I have friends round to dinner, do they always think, ‘Oh, he runs a restaurant – the food’s going to be fantastic’?” wonders Canteen’s Dominic Lake as he pops open a box of home-made hazelnut brittle that will later be used to crown a cheesecake. “You sometimes feel there’s this pressure to really perform.”

One way of sidestepping the problem entirely is to cook for the people you work with. Or, even better, cook with them. It’s a Saturday lunchtime and Lake, along with his Canteen co-founders Patrick Clayton-Malone and Cass Titcombe (who doubles as head chef), are all slowly, sociably adding to a table that is bending under the weight of cheese, fresh scones, chutney, beetroot relish, goat’s cheese tarts, Scotch eggs and one giant, glorious cooked ham.

It is precisely this kind of Great British food on which Canteen has built its reputation. When, in 2005, the three men opened their first restaurant in London’s Spitalfields Market, their approach was winningly simple: unpretentious food driven by freshness and quality ingredients, served with a neat sideline in casual, unfussy dining. That it translates to informal, languid weekend feeds such as today’s is only natural.

Sixties soul music floats through Clayton-Malone’s East London flat. Freja, Lake’s four-year-old daughter, rounds lovingly on Titcombe the moment he arrives.

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“What do you say to Cass?” asks Lake.

“Yes, Chef!” she yelps, one eager eye on the extra supplies he has brought along.

“There’s an apple chutney around here somewhere,” Titcombe mutters, scanning the table. “Chutney is a great thing to make at home. All you need is some fresh and dried fruit and a bit of spice and sugar. Play around with the ingredients and you can create your own signature chutney.”

Is it easy, cooking with colleagues?

“Well, I always make sure I’m not in head chef mode,” he grins.

“I’ll say, ‘I’ll give you a hand’, but I have to be careful. I’ll suddenly find myself taking charge and then it does feel like work.”

Lake’s son, one-year-old Albert, gnaws on a Scotch egg, babbling gleefully through the expanding smears of warm yolk around his mouth. The three men huddle round the kitchen worktop and Clayton-Malone pours out some nicely spiced, smoky Bloody Marys.

“Eventually, whatever happens, we do always end up talking shop,” Titcombe admits, once they are out of earshot of the family and friends who lounge hungrily in the living room.

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