Positives: Some of the best pub food around, cooked by Prince Charles’s former chef. Great, hand cut chips. Get in quick before the hordes discover it.
Negatives: If you’re looking for a light bite, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is their fish pie for two:
Hygiene rating: TBC
Address: 63 Sancroft Street, London SE11 5UG
Come back next Sunday to find out the number 1.
Positives: Everyone should go to The Lobster Pot at least once. The lobster is sensational, and so is the nautical-themed decor:
Negatives: Last year’s winner has slipped to no. 3 this year because it’s not the kind of restaurants we feel drawn to time and time again – it’s pricey (mains start at £20.50), and you do have to be in the right mood. Also, the use of inverted commas in this advert:
Address: 3 Kennington Lane, London SE11 4RG
Come back next Sunday to find out the number 2.
Update: i’klectik remains open as an arts and events space with a bar serving drinks and snacks, but they no longer serve meals from the kitchen
At the centre of Old Paradise Yard is i’klectik, an “art lab” and cafe that hosts everything from free jazz to life drawing to visual art shows to DJs, along with tasty vegetarian food. They have a friendly vibe, and a great building, so forgive them their cringeworthy name and get along there.
We went along for the weekend veggie brunch, served from 11am-4pm, accompanied by a DJ playing funk classics:
The menu is short but good, and there are plenty of snacks, teas and beers to choose from, as you can see here:
This is their root veggie, millet and seeds burger with roasted sweet potatoes and coleslaw. Yes, we got overexcited again and started eating before taking the photo:
It wasn’t on the menu when we visited but this veggie rainbow tart they posted on Twitter looks amazing:
It’s a nice bright space with high ceilings, and a diverse clientele:
Some of the food is grown on site and you can taste the freshness:
They’re open Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm and Saturday and Sunday 10am to 6pm, unless there’s an event on, in which case they stay open until 10.30pm.
Their website is not up to date so head to their Twitter or Facebook for more info.
Old Paradise Yard is at 20 Carlisle Lane, SE1 7LG, on the north side of Archibishop’s Park, yards from St Thomas’s Hospital.
Positives: It’s Mauritian – how many other Mauritian restaurants/tea rooms/showrooms are there around? The two founders are very friendly and put a lot of love and care into their Mauritian comfort food cooking, which is as tasty as that description sounds. It’s BYOB and cheap. There are more and more food places moving into Artworks but Marcel & Sons were trailblazers who are steadily getting more popular as word gets around. Plus you can pick up some artisan jewellery and a t-shirt while you’re there. See here for more info.
Negatives: Marcel & Sons is not so much a restaurant as a canteen in a shipping container where you eat surrounded by boutique products, so don’t go expecting formal dining. They close around 9pm, and at the time of writing they don’t open on Mondays, although they plan to start doing so soon to try out new dishes.
Address: 17b The Artworks, Elephant Road, London SE17 1LB
Come back next Sunday to find out the number 3.
Sadly Counter closed down in June 2017. Let’s hope they reopen.
Positives: Great food at brunch, lunch and dinner. Friendly service. There’s always a nice buzz in this huge new restaurant right next to Vauxhall station, plus live music and art. And, uniquely for a Kennington restaurant, Counter is almost always open (Monday to Thursday 7am to 12.30am, Friday 7am to 1.30am, Saturday 8am to 1.30am and Sunday 8am to 12.30am).
Negatives: Their aesthetic is esoteric – they served us coq au vin in an awkward shaped bowl which was worthy of We Want Plates. We’ve had various minor issues with service including the “lunch rapide” taking forever to arrive, but it’s nothing you wouldn’t expect from a busy, large-scale new opening, and we’re confident all this will be resolved before long – they seem like they care a lot.
Hygiene rating: TBC.
Address: Arch 50, 7-11 South Lambeth Place, London SW8 1SP.
Come back next Sunday to find out the number 4.
Positives: Eritrean food is delicious, unique and great fun for parties. We’ve been to a lot of Ertitrean and Ethiopian restaurants and Adulis might be the best of the lot.
Negatives: Occasionally sketchy, but friendly, service. The coffee ceremony basically involves burning the beans – that’s the Eritrean way – and will keep you awake for a week or so. And the food, although delicious, ain’t photogenic:
Address: 44-46 Brixton Road, London SW9 6BT.
Come back next Sunday to find out the number 5.
Positives: It’s cheap and BYOB. All the food is vegetarian and freshly cooked that day. The atmosphere is invariably great. There is often live music. It’s situated just off Bonnington Square, the most unique and vibrant of London’s residential squares, which, like Bonnington Cafe, has its roots in the squatting movement. There’s nowhere else like it.
Negatives: The quality of the food depends on which of the many volunteer chefs is cooking that night, and the service can be somewhat emotional, but it’s all part of the fun of the place. It’s cash only and you should call the chef to book a table – the rota is on their website.
Address: 11 Vauxhall Grove, London SW8 1TD
Come back next Sunday to find out the number six.
We finally visited Old Paradise Yard for the first time after a tip off from the Earl of Bedlam. What an interesting hive of activity!
It used to be a school for the children of the families of Lower Marsh traders, then became a Tibetan Buddhist centre. Now it’s a community of artists and creatives such as these:
From cycling clothing to sewing lessons to 3D printing to an Academy of Electronic Music, plus two places we’re planning to write more about soon: i’klectik – a vegetarian cafe and live music venue – and Gabriel Fine Art gallery.
Whoever is based in this building, we are jealous:
There will also be a church-affiliated community farm soon, for at least five years until the extension of a children’s hospital is built on the site:
Old Paradise Yard is located along the north side of Archbishop’s Park, at 20 Carlisle Lane, SE1 7LG, the other side of Lambeth Palace Road from St Thomas’s Hospital.
Positives: Persian food is really nice and distinct from other cuisines. Doost do it well, with a menu that offers a lot of explanation of the dishes. It’s also a vodka bar (these were widespread in Iran before the revolution). And they have a very cheery sign outside:
Negatives: It’s fairly pricey for Kennington, with mains ranging from £10 to £19.90. And, while the restaurant is classy, the website is not.
Address: 305 Kennington Road, London SE11 4QE
Come back next Sunday to find out the number seven.
Over Easter Weekend we went to Mazí Mas, a roaming restaurant that’s currently resident at Ovalhouse Theatre, and we were blown away.
We’d never plucked up the courage to go to Ovalhouse before and, arriving after the performance had finished, we were pleasantly surprised by how vibey the bar is on a Saturday night (it got even busier later). And they serve Effra Ale which is no Kernel but it’s pretty good.
The restaurant’s adjacent to the bar and was also full – they say there’s no need to book but we had to share a table with another couple.
Mazí Mas is a social enterprise whose chefs are female migrants and refugees from Brazil, Iran, Ethiopia, Turkey, Senegal and Peru, cooking recipes from their home countries. When we went, Roberta from Brazil was cooking and the food was delicious.
These are Roberta’s pao de quiejo (Brazilian cheese bread) and they taste as good as they look, plus they only cost £4 for five:
They use local, seasonal, sustainable ingredients and sure enough, everything tastes fresh and home-cooked. This is a main of pumpkin moqueca in coconut milk with lime (£7); they were also doing the same dish with white fish (£8) – both were great:
This is a dessert of passion fruit mousse for £4 (possibly not sourced locally but still):
The menu changes daily depending on who’s in the kitchen, although the cheese bread and passion fruit mousse seem to be permanent fixtures. Check their Twitter to find out what they’re cooking each day.
Their crowdfunding campaign is about to close and one of the offers is a meal for two for £25 which would work at as good value.
They will be at Ovalhouse every Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm to 10pm until May 30th. After that, we’d love to see them find a permanent site in Kennington.
Ovalhouse Theatre is at 52-54 Kennington Oval, SE11 5SW.
