London cat cafe: A mug and a moggy

It's also where, in May 2014, Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium – London's first cat cafe – threw its doors open to the surprise of the traditional Cockney locals.

"Five quid entrance fee? To stroke a few cats? They can come here and stroke my Felix [a 20-year-old moggy] for £1. And I'll throw in a cup of tea."

This is a verbatim quote from one perplexed woman living just a kilometre away: my mum.

Not that she isn't an animal lover; when in some distant future archaeologists dig up the tiny ground-floor garden of her council estate flat they'll probably think she was a witch, so full is it of her dead dogs, cats, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, lovebirds and the world's ugliest parrot.

"Come on, muvver," I argued. "It'll be a laugh. I'll pay the £5 [it's since increased to £6]."

It wasn't to be, though. Lady Dinah's was immediately booked out solidly until the October.

Cat cafes were created for people – modern apartment dwellers, mostly — unable to keep pets of their own. They had their genesis in Taiwan in 1998 but really took off in Japan in 2004. There are now 39 cat cafes in Tokyo alone – and they're starting to spring up in Australia. Melbourne launched one last year while Sydney got its first one – Catmosphere – in July.

It looked like I was going to have to wait but then came the opportunity to return to London for work in November – and I managed to secure a table for two at Lady Dinah's.

Mum wasn't hugely impressed but she agreed to come along. "Just don't tell Felix," I joked, "or she'll get jealous."

"No, she won't; she's dead." Honestly, how did that little titbit not make it on to Facebook?

Half an hour later I'm ushering an 82-year-old woman who has recently lost her feline companion of more than 20 years into a cafe awash with cats and cat memorabilia. Honestly, you can't make up this stuff.

Lady Dinah's faces Bethnal Green Road, just along from the entrance to Brick Lane and opposite the newly refurbished Well and Bucket pub (worth a visit for good beer and excellent food if you're not in the mood for tea, scones or sinfully tasty red velvet layer cake).

The cafe is named after Alice's friend, Dinah, in Alice in Wonderland, and there's a wonderfully twee tea shoppe/Mad Hatter feel about it. A stoppered bottle on the front counter is labelled Drink Me and there are scratching posts, cat boxes, cat portraits and motifs everywhere. You can even buy a painting of a cat called Petra for a cool $975.

We are greeted by a staff member wearing kitten ears and, as we wash our hands before being allowed in, are given the rules of the house. These boil down to: cats sleep anywhere from 16-20 hours a day; don't disturb them if they're asleep.

And so, for the next 90 minutes we drink tea in the basement area, eat cake and watch a bunch of cats sleeping, dozing disdainfully or lazily licking their bottoms.

At one point, a man in a cat beanie comes in and rolls around on the floor with a couple of newly arrived kittens. Eventually, two cats saunter past and disappear into nearby boxes to, you guessed it, sleep.

The 11 animals at Lady Dinah's are rescue cats, which would otherwise have been headed for the incinerator so it's all in a good cause but I suspect Mum won't be going back any time soon.

Still, it could be worse – Tokyo now has rabbit, birds of prey and goat cafes. Brace yourself, Australia.

Five more  animal attractions

PET CAFE, HANOI

It seems cat cafes are for pussies – the real McCoy opened two years ago and features up to 40 lizards as well as rats, snakes, big old spiders, squirrels and porcupines.  2-Ba Dinh Ngoc Khanh-Hanoi, Vietnam.

BAU HOUSE DOG CAFE, SEOUL

Divided into two sections for small and large dogs, the clue is in the name — it's a cafe full of dogs. Jeil Building. 1F, 394-44 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea.

SAKURAGAOKA  GOAT CAFE, TOKYO 

The goats at this cafe aren't free to wander around the place but you can pet and feed them. And if you book in advance you can take them out for a walk. No kidding. 22-22 Sakuragaokacho, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

THANKS NATURE CAFE, SEOUL 

Unlike the goat cafe, the two sheep at this cafe in the basement of a building in Seoul are free range.  344-1 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seogyo Prugio Apartment store B121 Seoul, South Korea.

BIRD CAFES  

There are a plethora of these in Tokyo where you can watch and/or pet parrots, parakeets, sparrows, cockatoos and owls. For individual details of each one see whereintokyo.com/dbinx/animalcafe. It's also good for details of rabbit cafes, which seem to be breeding like, er, well ...