For more on Sally White, see our earlier post.
Category Archives: cafes and restaurants
Brunswick House and LASSCO
LASSCO is an architectural reclaim company based in Brunswick House, a cavernous Georgian mansion on the gyratory in West Kennington. If architectural reclaim doesn’t sound much fun, it really is – imagine a museum where everything’s desirable and everything’s on sale. A whole room of taps. Antique baths for only £4000. If money was no object, this is where you’d go to furnish your house.
Brunswick House is also the best restaurant in the area, with food that’s more than matched by the atmosphere as you eat amongst the antiques and curiosities – look for the price tags on your chairs and tables. The restaurant is run by one of the Boxer family, who are also behind the nearby Italian deli and cafe Italo (which is just off Bonnington Square, the best advert there could be for squatting, but more on that another time), and Frank’s Café and Campari Bar atop a multi-story car park-cum-sculpture gallery, which is leading the regeneration of Peckham. For more on the Boxer family, see here.
Adrian Amos from LASSCO was featured in this week’s ES Magazine in one of the rooms at Brunswick House:
This is the main restaurant room:
Here’s a collection of signs from the exterior wall of the house:
For more photos of beautiful LASSCO objects, click here.
The Lobster Pot
The Lobster Pot is one of London’s finest seafood restaurants. It’s also arguably London’s funnest restaurant. And it’s a North Kennington institution – it has been here since 1991 and it’s frequently booked up. Really, you should just go there without knowing what to expect, but if you don’t mind a spoiler then read on.
After ringing a buzzer to gain entry (a precaution that dates back to the nineties rather than being necessary today), you will find yourself inside a ship, with port holes looking out into the sea (i.e. an aquarium):
Upstairs you are on the deck on the ship, with a view of a nearby port painted on the walls, and the sound of seagulls piped through the sound system.
Ship memorabilia is scattered throughout the restaurant:
If you order the lobster (and you should – it is excellent), you will be given a special Lobster Pot bib when it arrives:
I don’t have photos of the staff but the chef looks like Poirot, the staff dress as sailors and one of them is six foot four with model good looks. Eating here is an experience.
Aobaba Vietnamese restaurant and Longdan Express Oriental Supermarket
Relatively new on Walworth Road are two exciting arrivals within the same premises. Aobaba is a top notch and very reasonably priced Vietnamese street food restaurant. The veggie options are particularly good, the Vietnamese beers are cheap, and there’s a multitude of choice about how to flavour your bubble tea.
Lots of choice of garnishes:
Nice food, beautifully presented:
Even if you’re not a big buyer of oriental foods, the Longdan Express Oriental Supermarket is worth a visit for quality Western brands that aren’t otherwise easy to find in the area, like Teapigs tea.
The eighth annual Kennington Village Fete is this Saturday in Cleaver Square
As you can see from all the elements on the flier below, it’s really more than a fete – it’s a hyper-fete.
Although the alarmingly popular Bat the Rat stall has sadly departed for pastures new, the Amazing Human Fruit Machine still remains – and it really is amazing, or at least highly amusing the first time you see it.
Several Kennington restaurants will be serving food including The Lobster Pot which is one of London’s finest seafood restaurants, and definitely the most fun.
There will be live music, and who will the surprise special guests be? Morrissey? Florence? The Machine? Dot Allison? Giles Fraser performing A Change Is Gonna Come?
Finally, be sure to buy some Walworth Honey as harvested in East Kennington – previous years’ batches have been deliciously lemon-y like nothing you can buy in the shops, and eating local honey is supposed to be good for hay fever.
See you there.
food festival on a boat in West Kennington
Tamesis Dock, formerly known as The English Maid, is one of the best bars on the Thames. It’s a converted 1930s Dutch barge permanently docked off Albert Embankment in West Kennington. They sometimes play host to cool gigs, sometimes private parties, and the atmosphere is always good. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday night it hosts a dinner where fifteen different street food vendors all prepare a course (five each night). We recommend going along on Friday when London’s premier waffle makers Waffle On will be preparing one of the courses. Time Out has more info.
Doost – a Persian Grill & Vodka Bar
Doost is a Persian Grill & Vodka Bar that opened in the site Amici outgrew on Kennington Road. A Persian Grill & Vodka Bar might seem like a strange combination, but apparently vodka bars were widespread in Iran before the Islamic Revolution, and the food is really nice if not cheap. Their website appears to have been inspired by Hooters but despite that, it’s neither tacky nor unrefined.
Sally White
Very exciting to see a high end coffee shop and deli opening up in the heart of Kennington. Welcome Sally White which is on Kennington Road at the junction with Windmill Row. They serve proper coffee, nice cakes, and they commission poetry about asparagus (bet Ottolenghi have never done that).
