Chef Martin Blunos, who has beaten an idiosyncratic culinary path from Bath to Bangkok, has found an unexpected perch in London with the launch this week of Crystal Palace neighbourhood restaurant Tell Tale.

Opened by Jamie Edwards and Arron Curtis, the duo behind Brixton’s Electric Social (RIP) and New Cross pizzeria Radio Delicious, Tell Tale operates as an all-day cafe with coffee by Dark Arts, craft ales, natural wine and cocktails, with an evening menu devised by Blunos based around small and sharing plates of modern British and European food.

For the past five years, the walrus-moustached chef has been based in Bangkok, where he has two restaurants – Blunos and In The Pink, an outdoor rooftop venue he opened last year. He will apparently split his time between London and Bangkok.

Edwards and Curtis describe Blunos as “our close friend – an absoloute food guru and jedi in the kitchen”. He came to prominence after founding the restaurant Lettonie – named in reference to Latvia, his parents’ homeland – in Bristol in 1988. He later transferred it to his native Bath, and by the end of the 1990s it was listed as one of the country’s top restaurants by Harden’s, before Blunos closed it down in 2001 and embarked on a peripatetic career. His signature dishes from the era included scrambled eggs with caviar flambeed at the table in vodka.