The Great British café, as immortalised in films such as Brief Encounter, is an endangered species: you can't really have an illicit love affair over a cup of skinny soya latte and tooth-breaking cantucci. What is needed on these occasions is a nice pot of tea, sticky buns, a corner table and steam on the windows in which you can draw a dripping heart.

Sadly, the corner caff beloved by generations for their formica and vinyl, chipped, thick white china and slightly charred toasted teacakes, have mostly morphed into transatlantic Friends-style coffee lounges (real Gaggia and jukebox coffee bars are another matter, and also candidates for the preservation order). Thankfully, some of these remaining little gems of architectural design have been identified by enthusiasts who are campaigning to save them from destruction - see the Classic Cafes website.

The news, however, is not all bad: the true blue café survives in a number of guises. The Tea Guild, for example, has kept standards high with their annual awards and unflagging promotion of quality tea shops around the country. Whether it's afternoon tea at a chintz and lace country tea shop or designer dainties in a smart metropolitan patisserie-cum-cafe, the emphasis is on a choice of good leaf tea, with either milk or lemon; china pots and cups (earthenware coarsens the pure taste of real tea); a pot of hot water, strainer and home-made sandwich triangles (crusts off, please), cakes and scones.

A good café can also be a place to eat the cheap and cheerful classics of British cooking: fish and chips, homemade steak and kidney pie; sausage and mash. The best greasy spoons hit the all-day breakfast spot with their gargantuan variations on a theme of sausage, eggs and bacon; a south-west beachfront café can satisfy the appetites of the keenest of surfers with menus that range from bacon butties to crab linguine; a rainbow-hued, little vegetarian café will provide fresh and filling home-made meals; and the National Trust tearooms all fly the flag for excellent, traditional British baking and cooking using regional, often organic produce.

The British café has also gone European, with all day venues that are a vibrant, elegant mix of gastronomic cultures, somewhere between a restaurant and a brasserie but with tea and cakes, hot chocolate and viennoiserie. Three cheers. The British café lives to fight another day.

by Clarissa Hyman