Category Archives: cafes and restaurants

#9 The Top Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ 1 Sunday Roast)

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Beza Vegan Ethiopian

Beza Vegan Ethiopian is the Observer’s favourite vegan joint and has been since it started its local life as a pop up in Elephant and Castle shopping centre in 2016. It now lives on close to the new ‘was hip but now has a Gail’s Bakery’ dining area Sayer Street in Elephant. And the only thing better than the food is the fact that it is female owned and operated.

If you don’t know a great deal about Ethiopian food they make it easy for you as there is only one thing on the menu, and the very friendly Ethiopian staff can tell you all about it. The food is served on a giant platter and is intended to be eaten without cutlery by means of a glorious bread called injera, but you can choose rice (but don’t). Injera has a slight tangy flavour to it and they’ll bring you as much as you want. On the platter we had red lentils with garlic, sautéed mushrooms, chickpeas, spinach, beetroot and cabbage cooked in a variety of ways. The heat level was moderate but if want to ramp it up we were given two condiments. One was hot and the other felt like we were chomping down on molten lava, mitigated by free minty water.  All extremely pleasing.

The crowd at Beza are primarily thirty somethings who just left the gym with their water bottles and who probably live in those new flashy towers nearby. And LOTS of hair flicking. This by no means describes us, but they appeared envious of just how quickly we downed our big glasses of wine. And at only £39 for two people it was certainly good on the wallet. Or if you’re the hair flicking sort then your Apple. They also serve an even larger (were talking car tyre size) portion for four people, creating a party sharing vibe.

Why Ethopian food isn’t more popular is a great mystery to us, like that giant pong that used to be in Kennnington tube or why you never see any baby pigeons. But this shouldn’t be a mystery to you, and take your friends who dither, as there is really only one option!  አስገራሚ!

#10 The Top Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+1 Sunday Roast)

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The Duchy Arms for BBQ

And we’re off! And this spot was achieved for excellence in smoked meats

We’ve always felt slightly bad for the Duchy Arms as it suffers from BPLS, otherwise known as Bad Pub Location Syndrome. Located in Sancroft Street, you might have never seen the place in spite of its massive beer garden. In our role as ‘random yet glamourous members of the public’, we got talking to manager Josephine (who lives behind Sally White’s, tick!) who acknowledged that previous owners were ploughing through managers and menus faster than Boris Johnson has kids, and part of this was due to the location. So thinking creatively, they’ve turned the place into a barbeque smokehouse, an action of which we thoroughly approve.  

Your scribe and ‘office fun guy’ Phil from Accounts first ventured into the small plates section  by asking if Jager bombs count as a small plate. After being summarily kicked under the table, Phil ordered a pickles plate and some lamb ribs. The pickles were a mix of gherkin, carrot and radish; substantial rather than sliced and tasting home-prepared. They were sweet and sour and only gently acidic. This balanced quite well against the two fairly large lamb ribs that were as rich, fatty and lamby as you would hope. 

As Phil will do anything for free food, he then selected baby back ribs and your scribe grabbed the beef cheek. The ribs were a portion of two racks and had a nice glaze to them and pork meat that slid off the bone. You don’t need a sticky sauce when the meat is this good and the celeriac slaw accompaniment was great. The beef cheek wins the prize for the most surprised reaction when it arrived: as a big black glistening lump not unlike a genetically modified Malteser.  The dark smoked roast on the outside yielded to paler, supersoft meat within. If you don’t like fiddling with bones, it’s a good way to go – sticky, unctuous, super rich and smoking (traits that no one in the office possesses). It came incongruously with a  healthy cauliflower, smoke-grilled with curry spices and sat on what we assumed was hummus but was in fact a bean puree.  The side-order of chilli and garlic corn, slathered in deep smoked butter, pushed us further on the road to diabetes, but was great.

So how does the smokehouse menu stack up? The answer is excellently due to its breadth of barbecue offerings and its execution in a giant smoker in the garden. And believe it or not the Duchy does offer vegetarian items but veggies be warned – you will be seeing your favourite barnyard critters in flames in front of you as they have a giant smoker. We cannot vouch for the other items, but we think a deviation from pub classics is a good development in Kennington and we wish them the best of luck.

Pullens Yard Open Christmas 2025

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As frequent readers are all too aware, we here at the Observer love nothing more than anonymously sticking our noses where they don’t belong. So why not join the merry ranks of middle class white people and partake of our passion/dysfunction? We’re talkinng, of course, of the great Pullen’s Yard Christmas Open Studios weekend taking place on 5-7 December (that’s this weekend, folks) in Walworth.

Pullens Yards (Clements, Peacock and the large Iliffe Yard) are an amazing collection of 1880’s workhouses which were originally designed for the people who lived in the nearby Pullens Estate. We wrote about the fascinating squatting history of the estate a few years ago. Instead of being converted into luxury flats, the Yards serve the same purpose as they did 140 years go, and the cabinet makers and blacksmiths have been replaced by potters, jewellery makers, card makers and folks who make things that smell nice or wrap up for a gift. We once bought moth balls disguised as little knitted mice. And as we know crystals are just rocks, but the stall holders might just convince you that they have the power to heal.

The studios at Pullens Yards are usually not open to the public, but twice a year they fling their doors open to give us a glimpse into their creative universe. The artists are more than happy to show you what and how they create, and of course you can buy what’s on show. And buying is by no means compulsory, as at the end the day these folks just want to show off how clever they are and it’s totally free. Have we mentioned how much we love free?

A visit to the Yards is a fun way to spend a morning or a late afternoon searching for quirky and unnecessary things. In the past we’ve encountered live music, food for sale, a bar provided by Orbit Brewery(!) and live music. A wet Friday night is a particularly evocative time. And who knows, you just might discover a previously unrealised desire to own a necklace made out of forks or a room deodoriser fashioned as a piece of cheese.

Pullen’s Open Studios is open Friday evening and in the daytime over the weekend. And if you’re hungry or want some tea, check out the great and very quirky Electric Elephant Café. And no, its not a charity shop. It just looks like one.

The Coffee Shop @ Park College

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Like most people, when we’re set free from our subterranean publishing prison at lunchtime we’re often at a loss for what to do. With the weather getting worse its becoming impractical to sit in Kennington Park, even if the eye candy running past is alluring. So we’re headed around the corner to revisit an old friend.

Park College is an establishment that helps young people with additional needs (primarily autism) enter the world of work. On a previous visit we saw young people gardening, repairing bikes, and working in a design space. The Coffee Shop is for folks interested in the hospitality/catering trade, and the students cook and serve all the food with the assistance of dedicated staff. This includes sandwiches, muffins, cakes, paninis and quiches. And they’re mightily proud of their hot beverages and happy to help with your selection. 

With our regular lunch partner Karen from Finance still under the effects of Manjourno, her sidekick Pippa decided to plump for the special of the day, which was gnocchi with courgettes. This turned out to be a good sized serving of plain potato gnocchi with a light cream sauce flavoured which was was served with two salads alongside on the plate. Pippa found the iceberg lettuce and avocado to be a bit bland but the shredded carrot with tahini was much more interesting. After calling her an ‘ingrate’ under our breath, we reminded Pippa that its nigh impossible for find a healthy lunch for £7 in Greater Kennington.

Your much more grateful scribe had the mozzarela and sun dried tomato sandwich. Served between two salty slices of homemade focaccia bread. The tomatoes were oily and the mozzarela plentiful. It came with a quite sinister looking green smear on the side, which turned out to be lovely avocado. And just £5! There are various hot drinks available, again keenly priced, and a selection of soft drinks that focuses on juices or fizzy drinks with a natural bent – including a tasty can of sparkling apple with ginger.

The Park cafe also has an adorable giftshop selling cards, paintings, coffee mugs, and handbags made from crisp bags. Because after all, in the parallel universe in which Tesco resides, Christmas is apparently just around the corner.

400 Rabbits

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Located in the heart of trendy Elephant Park, Karen from Finance and your scribe find ourselves revisiting pizza palace 400 Rabbits, the newest in a south London collection of four pizzerias. Going for the youthful and fun market (us), the design aesthetic at 400 Rabbits is very much ‘post industrial meets aisle 6 at Ikea’. From the outset service was similarly bright and welcoming with tap water freely offered. When we discovered the negronis were only £6.50 we ditched the water and we can report that said negronis  had the precise bittersweet bite you expect of the drink, served simply in a small glass with ice and no faff. Lots of other cocktails are available. As we’re journalists of the classiest ilk, with the negronis we enjoyed delicious Catalan olives.

Your scribe ordered the anchovy, tomato based pizza. It came with an abundance of silvery anchovies and flecked with plump capers. You can imagine the umami kick. To complement these were the addition of shallots, black olives and rosemary. All worked together very well. The crust is slow fermentation sourdough, crispier and more robust – although thin – than the chewy Neapolitan style along the road at Theo’s. There are plenty of toppings choices in weird and wonderful combinations that we imagine change regularly given that a whole section was devoted to “Summer Pizzas”. Walnuts and kimchi being just two of them. Karen’s customary grab for a slice was countered by a deft fork stab of her index finger.

As Karen is currently having a ‘Mounjaro moment’ we’re surprised that she accepted our offer for dinner in the first place. Exhibiting profound discipline, she opted for a smaller pizza accompanied by a salad. She had the beef which came with shallots and guindilla chilies as well as the ground beef, so again a complex topping portfolio. Karen enjoyed the pizza but nevertheless smothered it in the free chili oil, which perhaps indicates that the Mounjaro hasn’t kicked in just yet. As Karen keeps banging on about tomatoless pizza (what’s the POINT!) we promised to add that some pizzas are indeed white, so you’ve been warned.

A very good pizzeria overall, but will it make our Top 10 List ™ in the new year? All pizzas are around £14 with £10 pizzas on Tuesday. The best bit is they make their own gelato, but that didn’t fit into Karen’s new lifestyle so we passed.  

The Firecracker Lunch Special

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When your scribe made a request to review the lunch options at Kennington Cross Chinese eatery Firecracker, the Observer finance director Adam said ‘you need to bring your own lunch’. When it was pointed out that a selection of rice or noodle dishes is just £8.50 or £10.00 if you add a soft drink or side dish he jumped out of seat and said ‘I’m your man’, and out of our secret office bunker we emerged.

On arrival at Firecracker we were greeted by a young waiter who had a ‘my parents own this gaff’ attitude to service. And to complement this swagger he had an amazing head of hair, reminding us somewhat of a Vileda mop. Adam was feeling spicy and chose belly pork and French bean with chilli bean sauce. He pronounced this properly spicy with plenty of beans and pork along with slightly sticky but lovely jasmine rice. Adam also decided, using his own words, to ‘splash out’ by ordering a side dish of prawn toast which was crunchy and abundant with sesame seeds.

Your scribe went old school and had sweet and sour chicken. The flavour profile was tangy and sweet, with the chicken very slightly battered and well combined with the tender vegetables. Between the rice bowls, noodle bowls and salads there were about 15 dishes to choose from, all at the same price. We didn’t tell Adam at the time, but given that the portions are perfectly decent you don’t need a side dish, even if some prawn toast did sound tempting. Not that offered us any, mind you.

Firecracker should be packed out but it was quiet on our visit on a Thursday lunchtime. Service was laid back in style, even a little sparse, but the food came quickly and was well presented. Let’s make this great Kennington lunch special more of a big deal and give the staff something to get excited about other than having great hair.

Mr. Charcoal – The Real Deal

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Mr. Charcoal is a very authentic Chinese in north Kennington focussing on dishes from northeast China and is by no means Cantonese takeaway fare. You might know it by its previous incarnation, Seveni. We recently paid a visit to see what the barbeque buzz is about. What first strikes the patron is the presence of cheesy Chinese pop music (tick), actual Chinese diners (triple tick), and enormous mutant looking fish in a tank (quadruple tick). In fact, it creates the almost immersive experience of being in a Beijing café.

As a starter new intern Nick and your scribe had chicken hearts. We’d never actually eaten heart before, and it can only be described as kind of like a crispy meatball. It was heavily seasoned with cumin (as a lot of dishes are), sesame, and a great deal of pepper. We contemplated ordering pig brain, aorta, intestines, or duck blood but then thought that the table would end up looking more like a crime scene. So we stuck with more mainstream dishes.

The main event for us was a shared stew pot described as Chinese sauerkraut with pork belly strips. Our server had helpfully advised that this was good to share so we teamed it with some egg fried rice. If you don’t like a lot of spice, this is a good choice: plenty of flavour in the cabbage, not exactly sauerkraut, a little more soup-like and the most delicious thin slices of pork belly somewhat of the fashion you might find floating in a bowl of Japanese ramen. This was sufficient for two people with the tasty egg fried rice also in a shareable portion. We also indulged on the lamb skewer. Forgetting protocol, Nick tried to split them in half until he realised, after your scribe stabbed him with a skewer, that Observer staff get more than interns. It was juicy, very cuminy, and melted in the mouth.

Half the tables at Mr. Charcoal come with BBQ’s at your table, but we weren’t that adventurous. Mr Charcoal can seem a little intimidating on first impressions, and there is not much of a website and what there is carries only a limited menu, half in Chinese and scant information beyond that, but that’s half the fun. Then, after an evening imagining ourselves to be in a little known café in Beijing with smiling locals eating every organ available, we were mercilessly disgorged onto a bus fumed Kennington Road where we almost got knocked down by a 59 bus. So much for dreaming.

The Bouquet and Beans Breakfast

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We recently escaped from our publishing house hatch to pay a visit to Bouquets and Beans in front of St. Anselms Church in Kennington. And unless you’ve been stuck behind a hatch yourself, you’ll be aware that it is run by the hardest working man in Kennington, Abraham.

For this breakfast excursion your scribe was accompanied by office ‘fun guy’ Phil from accounts. We both ordered the savoury stuffed croissant. It was delivered to us grilled, as requested, and this explains why the croissant in the photo looks like Phil sat on it (and not for the first time). To add to the order Phil said ‘can I get a pint with that’. Your scribe tactfully pointed out to Phil that this a breakfast venue, in addition to it being 9:30 in the morning. He then ordered a coffee and your scribe had a tea.

Our croissants were filled with a generous heap of high quality mozzarella cut from a ball, sun dried tomatoes, and a big dollop of pesto. It was almost a shame to see it melted and grilled, but the grilling brought out the buttery feel in the mouth. Plus, it gives us a flimsy excuse to go again and get the non grilled version. At £4.50 we can recommend this. Other options on the day were a pain au chocolate, almond croissant, and pistachio pain au chocolate.

And as you’re devouring your calorific croissant, why not buy some flowers! B&B’s also has a fine selection of blooms and Abraham or one of his perky Gez Z assistants can aid you in making a bouquet.

In the end Phil stared despairingly at his coffee which wasn’t a pint, and confirmed  the quality to be rich, rounded, and right up there with another Observer fave, Urban Botanica around the corner. Another reason to go is the great community feeling it has, with many of your fellow Kenningtonians chatting and sipping.

Community Space, a Fine Place to Get the Job Done

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  • You might recall that Walworth Town Hall sadly burned down several years ago and has had hoarding over it for aeons. Well, like a Phoenix or anything else that comes out of ashes it’s been reborn as Community Space, with rooms for hire for community and charity groups. As we at the Observer have no morals when it comes to free WiFi, and we just checked out their very swishy café which is to be used by mere mortals like us. 

The café look looks less like a coffee joint and more like a private members club. Mind you, we’re just speculating here as our experience of private members club extends only to  Subway’s ‘Sub Club’. This part of Walworth Town Hall was purchased by Community Space in order to provide flexible office areas upstairs, aimed at non profits. We have a feeling that a condition of purchase was that they had to provide services to the community, and they offer a number of free classes, such as yoga.  

In the Café we had an extremely overpriced (£4!) tea but at this price it gave us licence to sit there in quiet serenity for five hours. The coffees (espresso, latte, macchiato, the usual stuff) appeared a bit more reasonable. One half of the café is a casual restaurant offering an all day breakfast. Lunch offerings have a Japanese air and touch on everything that’s ‘on point’ at the moment, such as poke bowls and quinoa. The staff are very friendly. 

Although located at the eastern fringe of Greater Kennington, if you’re looking for a quiet place to work this could be for you. It did make us wonder if this is what it’s like being in Soho House, but without City types taking a ‘toilet break’ every ten minutes and shuttling past Barry from Eastenders to get to the bar. 

Collective Cakes

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The lovely building in the middle of Kennington Park is occupied by a family run pizza/cake establishment called ‘Collective’. Several years ago they decided to open a sandwich shop called ‘Sugar Pot’ in that frankly quite depressing parade of shops in front of Kennington Park It has now been replaced by a bakery and sandwich place called, fittingly, Collective Cakes.  

Reassuringly, the space at Collective has turned entirely into a kitchen, with goods available to consume either on a takeaway basis or on small tables out front. Our peppy server explained that the pastry chef arrives and cooks all of the baked goods (excluding croissants) from 5am. We saw your typical complement of Victoria sponge, muffins, scones, carrot cake, coffee and walnut, and lime and ginger. There are also vegan and gluten free options. 

Karen from Finance loves nothing more than a midday sweet treat to take her mind off numbers and wondering what happened to the fax machine. She had an apricot croissant, which she described as ‘of good quality and not as bouncy as those chain coffee shops’, adding that it possessed good flakiness and was a nice dark bronze, with apricot notes. Your scribe opted for one of the many savoury options and had a mozzarella, pesto and tomato sandwich. Good quality mozzarella, rich pesto, served on a kind of sourdough bread. Other sandwiches ingredients included prosciutto, stilton, and brie. They also sell homemade sourdough bread (I mean, who doesn’t).

In addition to the goodies outlined above, Collective also serves latte, cappuccino, and that old fashioned thing called coffee. Our server was keen to point out that that they also serve turmeric latte with no caffeine. We have no idea what that is but once we find that fax machine we’ll get to it.