Category Archives: pubs and bars

Orbit Brewery

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Were you aware that Greater Kennington has it’s own top flight micro brewery?  Well if not we’re here to tell you about Orbit Brewery, located in a tiny pocket at the corner of the KR catchment area, off Walworth Road. We wrote about it’s more embryonic concept in 2016. 

Orbit Brewery is the brainchild of Scotsman Robert Middleton, who has been producing beers under the arches in Walworth since 2014. Orbit used to sell a small volume of beers on site and about three months ago hired another arch across the road to create taproom selling their wares and, straight on the pulse, pop up food. We went on a Friday evening and sat outside and it proved to be a little urban oasis. Well, if you can escape the notion that you could be in the forecourt of a car repair shop or that place behind a nightclub where they store the bins. BUT, it had a good mix of locals and we were very pleased to see groups of women in what is sometimes construed as a male space. 

In a very challenging assignment, your dedicated scribe opted for the ‘IVO’ pale ale. I was getting hits of tangerine and some tropical fruits, cream and honey with just a bit of bitterness. My colleague had the ‘Peel’ pale ale.  It was Belgian and intensely hoppy, with notes of lemon and lime zest and bits of pepper and other forms of citrus. The colleague then had the ‘Dead Wax’ London porter, with a great deal of malt, not a great deal of bitterness, and spicy hops. And it was particularly coffee flavoured. They also feature a tzatziki flavoured beer which featured notes of cucumber and, yes, yogurt if you want to create illusion that you’re drinking something healthy.  The beer is served in pints, 2/3 and half pints if you like to mix things up. 

On the food front, we must disappointedly report that it was adequate but did not just really justify the £12 price point for a burger and potatoes. Granted, the potatoes were well cooked and the right side of greasy. We had the Challah baps which just didn’t really hit the mark on the flavour and seasoning front. We think bar snacks are the best accompaniment to your very own delicious Walworth crafted beer. And, like us, after a few you might find yourself in Orbit too. 

Always Be Comedy

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At Runoff Towers we are haltingly reentering the galaxy of semi normality and now attending Greater Kennington’s own top flight comedy night Always Be Comedy in person. Over the past 16 months MC James Gill and his ever optimistic team made a noble attempt to make ABC a virtual experience but it was a bit like watching stand up in a toilet cubicle, so it was refreshing to see a return to face to face laughing. 

On Monday night we saw the irrepressible Joe Lycett and the hilarious Sarah Pascoe, and on previous trips we’ve seen the likes of Harry Hill, Katherine Ryan, Russell Howard, Romesh Ranganathan, Josh Widdecombe (whoops – better pick up those names we just dropped!), all for a tenner. The only trick is you need to be quick off the mark, and also some are billed as ‘secret’ so it is probably a good idea to be on their mailing list. And if you’ve never heard of the comedian, you might discover somebody new and only exerted a walk over and hobble back from The Tommyfield pub in Kennington Cross in the process. 

MC James Gill

The demographic at ABC does makes you feel a bit like you’ve stumbled across reunion of contestants from ‘The Apprentice’, but if you can move beyond that and a the pricey pints then it’s a fun night. At the moment the seating is limited and socially distanced and people wear masks when they are milling around, and as expected you’re expected to tap in when you arrive and this will continue to be the case next week. 

A Party for the Elephant

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This coming Saturday (26th) the much loved and much refurbished Elephant and Castle elephant will be making a return to the area and perched in its new home in Castle Square, which is in Elephant Street behind the now mostly past tense shopping centre. We are dearly hoping that the statue will be dragged trojan horse style through the streets by the executives of Lendlease, but our dreams rarely come true. 

We give you this information as the return will be accompanied by a kind of street party, and we are all invited. According to the press release, the Elephant and Castle Town Centre Team (whoever the hell they are) will be laying on a whole day of family fun that includes world music and food, cocktails (!), history, dancers and talks. It runs from 11:00 to 17:00. 


A selection of local traders will make up the backbone of the event and will include Coma Y Beba and Caribbean dishes from Kaieteur Kitchen. As this is Elephant, also expect lots of Venezuelan and Colombian fare, in addition to African dishes. Also on hand is Vauxhall staple and ‘wow I never knew a pint could cost 12 quid’ taproom Mother Kellys, who will be opening a new outlet in Elephant Square. We expect free samples. 


And if you are thinking that this celebration is just a cynical way for the property developers to win over local residents we could not POSSIBLY comment. What we can comment on is the chance  to support local traders, eat some interesting global food and catch some free music and stimulate that long dormant grey matter.  For a video of the elephant losing it’s perch, see below.

The Jolly Gardeners

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Some of you might remember a curious German themed sports pub called ‘Zeitgeist’ at the top of Black Prince Road. We reviewed it last year and described the fare as ‘food best consumed when you’re not entirely sober’. Shortly afterwards it went under. It has now been resurrected in its original guise –  ‘The Jolly Gardeners’. We had a clandestine and very pleasing meal there a few weeks ago and then caught up with the current proprietors to find out how they plan to please us Greater Kenningtonians. 

The Gardeners was purchased late last year by five mates from Essex, Dan (who now lives next to the Gardeners), Nick, Jonathan, Ryan, and Rob. All come from different professional backgrounds but are rooted in running restaurants and pubs. As the pub is enormous, I asked one of the guys how they plan to use the space. They explained that part of it will be a reservable restaurant in a ‘family sharing vibe’ (think Sunday roasts, bloody Mary’s, scotch eggs, etc.) the other 70% will be more of a traditional pub. They’ve also built an outside area (which rather resembles a ski lodge) which will be useful in the summer, if that ever happens.

On the food and drink front, the boys informed us that over 50% of the food items will be vegan but ‘more interesting than you might think’. They are trying to source things locally and are tapping into local producers. On the subject of tapping they are not tied to a brewer and are trying to use localish brewers such as Coalition. Pub snacks will also be on the menu, featuring items such as confit potatoes and cauliflower wedges. According to the boys, they acknowledge that dining and drinking habits have evolved over the past 18 months, for instance with more people working from home, and they are keen to address this.  

One of the issues with the Gardeners is that it does not have a great deal of footfall and people might forget that it exists. When I asked the guys how they plan to address this niggling issue they replied ‘by serving excellent foot at a reasonable price point so people don’t forget us. 

The menu below might have changed but gives you a sense of what they do. The pub is open now for drinks and food. Even if all the boys aren’t locals, lets embrace them as one of our own! 

Greater Kennington Opens Up – The Duchy Arms

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We’ve always felt a little sorry for the Duchy Arms and have developed a soft spot for the place. Located off the main drag, its never enjoyed the passing trade of other venues and has seemed a bit, well, lost. However, it has benefitted from one quirky trait not enjoyed by other pubs…..it has a car park. The car park has now been transformed into an umbrella strewn beer garden, so it’s moment has arrived. As it is truly outside the area has more space and circulation than the Dog House and you do not feel fork to fork next to your fellow diner. Although more spread out, it still has a lively ‘we’ve just come from football practice’ vibe about it. And great staff. 

Your scribe and a Runoff colleague enjoyed the lamb kofta with couscous, flatbread and little bowl of tzatziki. It was well spiced lamb and they brought more tzatziki when requested. Another colleague had beer battered haddock with mushy peas and hand cut chips. It was described as ‘lovely, nice and fresh with a crisp batter’. As for the chips, they were definitely made fresh and had not visited the north pole. Our French colleague had the pie of the day, which was creamy chicken and leek. When asked to describe the quality, the colleague shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat. We’ll interpret that as ‘pretty good’. 

If you are planning an outing to a Greater Kennington pub in the next week or so if it is within popular hours we strongly suggest that you book first. And after our sub polar dining experience we think it might good to idea to book earlier in the evening.  And please remember to bundle up. Humans can do many great things, but eating dinner in a 7 degree car park requires a degree of forward thinking. 

Greater Kennington Opens Up – The Dog House

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Over the next week we’ll be visiting five diverse Greater Kennington establishments that have been partially or totally closed since Christmas. We’ll be giving you the KR lowdown on how safe they feel, how seating works, improvements in their menus, issues of overcrowding, and we might even have a cheeky drink or two or six. Our handy guide to how pubs and restaurants are operating is at the bottom of this post.

As you likely already know, from now until 17 May all food and drink served must be outdoors. However, unlike the last time pubs were open, which feels like 45 years ago, you do not have to order food. Also, venues no longer have to close at 10:00pm. First on our journey across Kennington Land is the Dog House in Kennington Cross, which for the record is open until midnight and 2:00am at weekends. Neighbours must love that.

Your scribe and five selected interns and sales people from the KR office had dinner and drinks on Monday night and it was very full. In terms of social distancing, well, lets just say at least people weren’t licking one another. As you can see by the picture below, the benches were packed tightly under the awning, and if this makes you feel a bit uneasy you might want to opt for the uncovered seats. And if you go this week it is best to reserve. 

The food at the Dog House has always been a bit on the ‘meh’ side, but on this outing it was suspiciously ‘meh’. People in our group had burgers, pies, and chicken escalope. We all agreed that the poor quality food could not just be a result of just opening again, and the chips had definitely seen some freezer action which did not used to be the case. The service was slow, but we attributed this to the crowd, and the server was apologetic. The apologetic server appeared new, as did all the other staff that night, and that got us thinking. We asked the server if the pub was under new management. The server excitedly explained that the pub is now operated by mega chain ‘Punch’. Oh dear. 

Unfortunately we cannot recommend a meal at the new Punch operated Dog House, but it’s still a great place to people watch and have drinks with friends. When thinking about the new Dog House don’t lose heart as at least it isn’t a boarded up shell. Or worse, a Foxtons. 

The KR Doghouse experiment

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Last night we ventured out to local Kennington watering hole The Dog House as a flimsy excuse to get tipsy in the middle of the week means to ascertain how the new Tier 2 system works in pubs. We do suffer for our craft. 

We were a group of six so we sat outside. The tables were spaced comfortably far apart and half the tables were not occupied. This could have possibly been due to the fact that it was flipping freezing outside (if you’re reading this, Dog House, you might want to think about heaters). A group of seven men arrived and the staff told them they couldn’t sit at the same table, which was laudable. Tables inside were also spaced about a metre apart. 

Now for the interesting bit. You are not able to order a drink before your meal and they must be ordered with the food. The Dog House had an ‘express special’ of a jacket potato at £7 which counted as a mains. We didn’t meander into ‘does a Scotch egg count’ territory. We were able to order more drinks during the meal to our hearts content. Even if it is a technical no no, someone even ordered a drink after their plate had been collected. 

So life is pivoting toward a semblance of pseudo normality day by day. And It’s  even possible to book the tables outside, just give them a call. 

Takeaway Thai at Oaka

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Remember that halcyon time when you could go to a place and consume  alcoholic beverages with your friends? Well, that ain’t gonna happen right now, but some of these places are still serving food. One is Oaka at Mansion House in Kennington Park Road. We’ve always given the place a wide berth as it reminds us of a cocktail bar in the departures lounge at Luton Airport.  We were therefore surprised to discover that they have a pretty tasty Thai menu. 

There were three of us eating, and we had two Panang curries (one prawn, one chicken) and two Pad Thai noodles (one prawn, one chicken). The Panang curries were packed with flavour, plenty of hot (not too hotpot) and sharp spice, a warm hint of aniseed and a rich coconut milk based sauce – it’s fairly liquid but great with some jasmine rice – very tasty. With the chicken option there’s more meat to the dish, but the prawns were nice and fat. The Pad Thai had plenty going on with the abundant veg and noodles and possessed a tingling kick. Generous prawn crackers were thrown in as well. The total came to just over £60

  • All the proof you ever need
  • that we’re not food photographers

Running a website which encourages people out of the house when people should be staying in the house isn’t easy. In the past we have pillioried outfits such as Deliveroo and Just Eat as they encouraged people to sit at home watching Selling Sunset as opposed going out and discovering things. However *grits teeth* we now appreciate the role that they play in keeping us all safe, and we will never throw virtual poo their way again.  And Just Eat, we’ll even forgive you for that bizarre TV ad featuring Snoop Dogg. 

Getting a bit botanical in Montford Place

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The Beefeater Distillery became an ‘experience’ in 2014 and since then the Runoff has been keen to visit.  However, we rather balked at the notion of shelling out £16 a head to tour what is in essence a factory, even with the added benefit of getting sozzeled in the end. So when we saw that #beinvauxhall were offering two for one tickets we leapt at the chance. We wrote a little missive about the history of Beefeater in Kennington last year. 

The Beefeater experience starts self guided, with a very slick history of the sauce, covering everything from the ‘gin lane’ era of Hogarth and unregulated spirits, to US prohibtion and the rise of the speakeasy. Intertwined are fun little videos about how gin is produced and the propagation of gin distilleries in London over the years. 

Our enthusiastic Italian tour guide Maria took over for the second part of the tour and put more depth into the gin making process. In the tasting room we sampled different kinds of gin and the botanicals that give different varieties their unique flavour. This included not only juniper but also orange peel, coriander, tea, licorice, and angelica seed. Our only slight digression was when Maria asked ‘so what does that remind you of’ and your scribe shouted ‘Bombay Sapphire’. Moving on…

The last part of our journey was indeed the most fascinating as we had a very informative tour of the stills and learned more about the distillation process. Maria was also able to verify a long held Kennington urban myth-…..only five people are employed and produce all of the Beefeater gin sent around the globe. 

The event ended with a G&T in their tasting room and we left with the best of both worlds – feeling cerebrally enhanced and a bit tipsy. With the added benefit of being able to say to our mates with confidence – ‘yeah, I’m really getting heavy notes of angelica seed here’. 

The Be in Vauxhall deal runs at least until the end of the year, and details can be found here.  Even if Be in Vauxhall is a faceless marketing company they still seem to know what’s going on, so its fun to have a root around their website if nothing else.