Author Archives: Kennington Runoff

Kennington Lane Kebab

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A few weeks ago an adorable little kebab shop popped up at the top of Kennington Lane in Vauxhall (where it meets Harleyford Road) and it’s been on our radar ever since. It’s cleverly carved out of the back of the ever popular greasy spoon Kennington Lane Café and you can even use their outside tables for your lunch if don’t mind your lamb doner mixed with a few bus fumes.  

As our Runoff identities are top secret, I’ll call my dining partner ‘Donna Kebab’, and Donna joined your scribe for the special offer at lunchtime. She had a lamb doner wrap for £6 , and I had a £5 chicken doner wrap. Donna’s was filled with tasty lamb kebab slices with some lettuce, tomato, onion and cucumber and a good slosh of chilli sauce. Mine was similar, and with the added kick of saltiness that is essential to a chicken kebab. They were slightly shrunken and encased by a tortilla wrap rather than a pitta bread which makes takeaway and eating on the run easier. Veggie kebabs are also on offer in addition to falafel. Overall much better than your average kebab, and Donna agreed. 

  • Lamb. And please don’t judge us. Photographing food is hard
  • Chicken

If you don’t have the fortune to live in Vauxhall, on Walworth Rd. there exists another of our of kebab favourites, Shawarma Hut. This is more of a Lebanese fast food affair serving up mezze, kofta, falafel, and all varieties of delicious shawarma (even Mexican). Also offered is that Lebanese staple,. Chicken wings. All very cheap and filling And on our visit this was accompanied by unnerving yet invigorating house music. 

Both are available on Deliveroo and Uber Eats

Foundation Show Frolics

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Hot off the heals from Craft Week,  City and Guilds of London Art School is at it again and having it’s annual show and we’ve had an inspection. The artists are completing their foundation year, so the work is less advanced than the much grander Degree Show (we’ll get on to that in a tic). The students are studying a more proscribed range of styles than their more advanced counterparts but are much more experimental (read, slightly mad but very interesting). The themes this year seem to be 1. Saving the planet 2. Handbags   3. Saving the planet through handbags 4. Rocks. If you want to impress your friends bring them along and when they invariably  ask ‘well, what DOES it mean’, try rolling your eyes and saying ‘its about IDENTITY’. If that doesn’t work try ‘can’t you see, it’s about UKRAINE’. 

The Foundation show is on tomorrow (Friday the 20th) from 10 – 5 and Saturday 10 – 5. It’s  in the old telephone building in Kennings Way

On 29 June to 3 July is the mighty (we’re talking huge) Degree Show in the main buildings of the college. It showcases a range of up and coming artists arranged in small rooms, so you can see a selection of their works. What we find most interesting is that you can see the work of historic wood and stone carvers in the back garden area. Also of interest is the areas dealing with conservation and restoration on the upper floors. And if you don’t care for something keep your trap shut as chances are the artist is behind you!

Getting Crafty @ City&Guilds

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Another high point on the Greater Kennington cultural calendar takes place this weekend and we’re here to tell you about it. City and Guilds in Kennington Park Road are taking part in London Craft week on Friday and Saturday and it looks as if they are hosting a number of free (and we love free) events and demonstrations. 

Various studios around C&GLAS will be open exhibiting a range of crafts and showing how stuff is made. In the paper studio students and tutors will be on hand to show paper related demonstrations and discuss paper conservation. In the printmaking studio, the head of printmaking will be hosting several (sadly now booked) workshops but others will be on hand giving demonstrations of different kinds of printing such as intaglio. We’ve been in this studio, and it is a fascinating space. Outside, students will be giving demonstrations of wood and stone carving and you can even have a go at carving yourself! Apparently there is a carving competition among students as well. This sounds frighteningly dangerous, but somebody losing a half a finger could be interesting nevertheless. 

The press release enticingly mentions a free talk and tasting event sponsored by Fabal Lager (we’ve never heard of them either) on Saturday afternoon which sounds fun. Indeed, we reached out to City and Guilds to see if they were having a launch event featuring free wine and canapés which might just influence our review. Their response was ‘no’, but we’ve picked up the pieces of our shattered dream and moved on with our lives. 

No ticket is required for this event, just turn up. 

Cherry Tiger

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Suffer as we do for our readers, we just checked out Elephant and Castle’s very first cocktail bar, Cherry Tiger, which opened last week. It’s perched at the top of Elephant Square, incongruously set amongst shops selling wigs, figure shaping garments and costume jewellery. The location affords nice views towards our newly created little patch of green, Elephant Park. 

James on the left, 75 on the right

Cherry Tiger is owned by the highly regarded and ‘oh my god does that pint really cost 9 quid’ Vauxhall taproom Mother Kellys, so it comes with a fine pedigree. Having said that, most of the cocktails at CT come in at £8 here, which is pretty reasonable for London. Julie from our accounts team likes a nice cocktail, and she had the ‘French 75’ with gin and sparkling wine. It was semi dry, zesty and lemony. Your scribe had the very sweet ‘James Brown’ featuring bourbon, amaretto and sugar. In addition to the inventive drinks below, CT can also mix up more traditional cocktails and also have a beer and wine list. 

As you can see, the design aesthetic of Cherry Tiger is a kind of mashup of fancy wallpaper meets weekend project following a B&Q visit. The highly energetic staff explained that it is still early days at CT, and the look will change over the next few weeks. While it might not be an evening destination per se, Cherry Tiger is a fine way to either start or finish your evening. But if you do spend your whole evening there, if the stairs prove too daunting there is a lift. 

Lambeth Palace Library

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Located at the very pinnacle of the Runoff catchment area, you might not know about Lambeth Palace Library. You’re probably thinking ‘say WHAT, there’s a nine storey library in Greater Kennington’ and you can be forgiven for the oversight. The massive structure has been carved out of just 3% of the archbishop’s garden and lies next to Archbishop’s Park, although it’s easy to miss. The structure is a victory of understatement with ponds and tweedy looking brick crosses. This belies the gravity of a building created as a protector of manuscripts and designed as a fortress against the pesky factors that threaten them such as light, water, and Greater Kennoingtonians. However, it is also a museum with rotating exhibits and the current offering is the fascinating and free ‘From Popish Plot to Civil Rights: Themes in Religious Archives’.

The current pop up exhibition highlights a range of subjects covered by the Library’s diverse collections of religious archives. To mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee, items on display relate to her coronation in 1953. Other material relates to the Church and other denominations and faiths, with exhibits illustrating relations with Roman Catholicism, such as the anti-Catholic agitator Titus Oates. Items on Jewish history include Hebrew manuscripts. A further theme covers the Church and race, including material relating to the civil rights movement, and to the first British Black Bishop, Wilfred Wood.

The areas open to the public are very small, and in fact the current exhibit only extends to four glass cases on the first floor. But fear not, as there are fun interactive boards on the ground floor. Also,  with a bit of planning you can nab tickets on a free tour. Failing that, the reading room is available if you obtain a free pass in advance. And failing that, the Lambeth Palace website is a handy and interesting resource. We were particularly interested in learning more about the ‘London Apocalypse’ but saddened to learn that it does not, in fact, relate to Vauxhall at 6am of a Sunday when the nightclubs have just closed. 

Springtime Fun in Greater Kennington

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Our long Bank Holiday is now a thing of the past and we hope the elements that you actually remember were wonderful. With spring well and truly underway, we have three fun activities to tell you about and the first one takes place this Sunday (24 April) at the Gardening Museum. It’s time for their annual Spring Plant Fair, featuring expert plant growers from around the UK selling their wares for your allotment, windowsill, or garden. In addition to getting to pick their ample brains for advice and tips, the Museum is also laying on talks in areas such as planting in the shade and making your own compost (we might give that one a miss). Time slots are going fast and can be nabbed here. It also includes access to their museum, featuring a creepy gnome that’s a dead ringer for Tony Blair. 

If gardening is your thing, over at the wonderful Vauxhall City Farm on Friday (22 April) from 11 to 3 they are having an open day in their community garden. It is totally free and people will be on hand eager to tell you how their garden has changed over the years, their plans for the future, and how you can get involved as a volunteer. They will offer tips about maintaining a sustainable garden and how to grow your own food at home. 

Moving on to the parallel universe that is Cleaver Square….If your interest/fetish is not so much plant based but focussed squarely on older white men who throw kitchen towels in the air, then we have JUST the thing for you! A large display of Morris dancing will take place on Saturday (23 April) at noon to commemorate St. Georges Day by a group called Greensleeves. We don’t have a great deal of information about this happening but there are signs about it everywhere. Whether its men throwing things, a tipsy Vicar acting as MC, or a totally inappropriate Punch and Judy show, we can always rely on our friends in Cleaver Square for a laugh. 

If you want to discover more about Greensleeves then look no further than their extremely comprehensive and *coughs* handy website.

Orbit Brewery

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As the long weekend beckons we thought we would tell you about our recent visit our very own local microbrewery Orbit, located in a pocket of Walworth in the very precipice of the Greater Kennington catchment area. If you’re  a dedicated KR fan (and if not you’re missing out) you’ll remember that we visited the place last September but rather slammed them on the food front. We wanted to give them a shot at redemption, plus getting us into a brewery isn’t exactly a chore for us. 

Orbit is primarily about beers, and your scribe started with the Belgian pale ale ‘Peel’. It was a very hoppy offering with notes of pepper/clove, and also bits of citrus and lime. I still swear that at the end I got a hit of Colgate Total, but my unfeeling colleagues only laughed and questioned when I last brushed. Unfeeling colleague one started with a limited edition Cuvée de Cologne, served as a 2/3 pint size. It’s their Koln lager but given an extra twist that, for said colleague, gave it a Belgian lambic taste. Delicious. Equally distinctive was the Dead Wax London Porter, had by the other colleague, one of their core pint offerings, rich and dark as a Porter should be with a chocolate caramel character. What they seem to be doing at Orbit is to experiment and make their offerings as diverse as possible. And in case you were wondering, they do serve tadzitki flavoured beer.

On the food front, we were keen to improve on their Challah bap ‘adventure’ of a few months ago and we weren’t disappointed. We indulged in a king size plate of fried pork belly with negroni rhubarb and confit fennel. It was a great and bold mix of punchy flavours with the pork more or less melting even before it hit our tongues. Also looking good was ox cheek lasagne and Cretan bread salad. When your scribe asked where he gets his inspiration he said ‘I just make it up’….Respect! They also have a rather exciting looking Sunday roast which we are keeping our KR eyes attuned to. 

If you live in Walworth you’ve probably seen Orbit beers popping up in places like the retro video game pub Four Quarters and in Littlle Louis, the only bar/restaurant where you can actually buy the furniture. And if you’re still staying safe at home, of if people just don’t like going out with you, as Orbit is a brewery you can buy all the beer you want to take away and mixed up some cases for home consumption. 

Baylen Leonard, Our Local Country Boy

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We recently had a chin wag with long time Kennington resident Baylen Leonard. Baylen is a presenter at the increasingly popular ‘Absolute Country’ and in fact was the first voice on the channel when it launched a few years ago. Described as the ‘oracle of country music’, Baylen just won ‘International Country Broadcaster of the Year’ at the Country Music Awards. 

Baylen hails from Bristol, Tennessee and arrived in London via New York in 2000. He started his career as a voiceover artist,  worked with Sara Cox, had a podcast with Danny Baker, and then landed his first job working at Radio 1 London. He has also presented the massive (and it must be because even we’ve heard of it) Country 2 Country Festival for Radio 2.  He also runs an online country music magazine called Holler. Whew….and to think, here in the office we get exhausted when we ask Sue to order more staples. 

Baylen is passionate about country music, pointing out that Absolute Radio wouldn’t have touched it with a bargepole unless they recognised it was probably the largest growing genre of music in the UK.. Baylen observed that what people appreciate about country is that often songs tell stories, and that people are moving back to ‘honesty and authenticity’ in their musical tastes. When asked how people can tip their toe into home grown country talent, Baylen tipped The Shires and Twinnie.

When interviewing folks we always like to ascertain what Greater Kennington means to them, and Baylen said ‘it is constantly evolving but not over run with chain shops’. When not behind a microphone Baylen can be found at his local The Dog House, The Vauxhall Tavern, or The Eagle. In terms of grub he’s a fan of Oval Farmers Market, Mimi’s Deli, Theos Pizzeria, and Kuma. For sushi it has to be Taro, and for him the best burgers can be found at The White Bear. We fully endorse all of these selections and no money has changed hands.  

As if all of the excitement above isn’t enough for our local boy, he’s even gone and started a country music festival called The Long Road with over 100 acts, and tickets are available now. On the subject of festivals, we at the Runoff are a very modest sort and we don’t like to show off. But since you asked, we did see Dolly at Glastonbury  a few years again and a short video is below *picks up name just dropped on the floor*. 

The Tupi Brunch Experience

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Brunch is something not generally covered on the Runoff, and we recently checked  out ‘Tupi’ in Elephant Park. We had given Tupi a wide berth as from the outside the joint looks quite soulless and we still feel guilty about liking Elephant Park.  But inside it’s a bright affair with a giant and colourful mural of a Tupi Indian and loads of plants. When we entered the establishment they asked if we had a reservation and by the time we completed it was full, so the word is certainly out there. 

It was mobbed by the time we left

Tupi’s styles itself as Brazilian fusion and its dinner menu does contain some staples from Brazil such as Feijoada and Muqueca. However, this was brunch and we tried to refrain from the more traditional brunch fare of eggs and pancakes (of which there many) to try things more exotic.  My guest chose huevos rancheros and this was a variation on the Mexican version, with poached egg instead of fried and sourdough instead of tortilla. It was delicious: a well sized portion of black beans, warm tomato and onion salsa, some guacamole and sour cream topped off with two poached eggs and a slice of toasted sourdough. This felt like a filling and pretty healthy way to start the day.

Your sturdy scribe had that great Brazilian delicacy, a burrito. It consisted of coriander, lime rice, black beans, sour cream, pico  de gallo, sweet corn. It was dominated by cheese and a generous amount of chicken. I would recommend this in addition to other more interesting items such as Turkish eggs or chorizo hash. Given that our little Brunch overlapped with lunch we also say punters tucking into some pretty hefty looking burgers and truffle gnocchi. 

And of course Tupi’s has a bottomless brunch as we’re pretty sure it’s illegal now not to have one. Details below – 

Edward Hollamby, the Architect of Greater Kennington

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A great deal of the built environment around us in Greater Kennington can be linked directly to architect and visionary Edward Hollamby (1921 – 1999). Like many architects of his generation, Hollamby was profoundly influenced by the values of William Morris. Namely, those relating to equitable living conditions and the universal right for people to work and live in places which allow them to flourish. There was no better way to execute these values that by working for local government, and Hollamby worked for both the LCC and Lambeth Council. 

Locally,  Hollamby is known primarily for being the lead architect of the Brandon Estate in Walworth (behind Kennington Park), which we wrote about last summer. His vision for the estate was to build a community which addressed the individual and changing needs of its residents, make shopping easier, while also creating large green spaces to allow people to relax and children to play. And to make the area more aesthetically pleasing he even convinced Lambeth to commission a sculpture by Henry Moore, which is very much still there.

As lead architect in Lambeth Hollamby hired Peter Finch, who designed the Cotton Gardens Estate in Kennington Lane (we are aware that these buildings remain a tad controversial). Hollamby/Finch’s thinking is that they wanted buildings which ‘danced around in different directions’ depending on how one looked at them. It’s often overlooked that at ground level they created green spaces in addition to bungalows and maisonettes for people who didn’t fancy  living in a high rise. A walk around Knight’s Walk around the foot of the buildings is a bit like a stroll in a park. And if the towers look very familiar to others in South London, that’s because they were all made from complex interlocking panels which were massed produced. 

Hollamby was also the brains behind the unusual and rather playful Lambeth Towers in Kennington Road, with the lead architect again being Finch. The building was started in 1964 with the intention of being mixed use, which it is to this day, and the box like design intended to allow each maisonette to be double aspect and have its own balcony. These buildings are classed as being ‘Brutalist’ but that name seems to stick to every 20thCentury building with a bit of exposed brick. Figuring out when a building becomes ‘brutal’ therefore becomes rather like an architectural game of Wordle. You may or may not find these estates to be beautiful, but Hollamby always made the needs and wishes of the residents paramount.