Category Archives: celebrities

KENNINGTON NEEDS YOU to save Kennington Bookshop

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It’s official – the “NEW SHOP LEASE” sign is up – Kennington Bookshop will be no more from Sunday May 31st 2015.

Kennington Bookshop with new shop lease sign up - kenningtonrunoff.com

Although it’s been a successful venture for eight years, the couple who run it have come to the end of their lease and are moving on, with talk of setting up a new bookshop somewhere out of London. They are winding down the new stock and plan to take the second hand stuff with them.

Whoever takes on the site will have big boots to fill, as the Guardian notes: “it quickly became a fixture in the local community, famed for its customer service and bright, peaceful feel. The range is eclectic and individual; carefully chosen books are laid out on antique tables, with Georgian-style bookcases holding all the major categories of fiction and non-fiction.”

The landlords will be looking for new, experienced tenants, with a strong business plan. How about Daunt Books? With sites in Marylebone, Chelsea, Holland Park, Hampstead, Belsize Park and the City of London, Kennington would be the ideal location for their first venture south of the river.

In many ways Kennington Bookshop felt like a branch of Daunt Books – they have a similarly well thought-through book edit, and even created their own version of that bookshop bag (the Kennington one is just as ubiquitous in Kennington as the Daunt one is elsewhere):

The bookshop occupies a large site across two floors on Kennington Road with plenty of passing trade. Regular customers include Will Self, Sarah Waters, and indeed us (we buy most of our gifts there and order books for next day delivery instead of using Amazon).

Central Kennington, AKA Kennington Village, is just starting to become a real destination thanks to recent arrivals like The Boule-In, Brocket Gallery and Sally White joining stalwarts like Windmill Flowers and Space Station Sixty Five. Now would be a great time for Daunt Books to join them.

If you’d like to see Daunt Books come to Kennington, please email them here or tweet them here. We’ll be giving them our full support.

our central Kennington predictions for 2015

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The Boule-In, the new French vintage homewares boutique at the junction of Kennington Road and Windmill Row, will be a great success. Watch this space for more on this.

“The Boule-In Effect” will see further exciting boutiques opening up in central Kennington, joining Sally White, Kennington Bookshop and Windmill Flowers. Windmill Row will become the new Redchurch Street.

Lambeth Council will finally get their way and kill the Tree of Heaven behind Durning Library, which will help the Green Party in their surge across Lambeth (OK, not everyone agrees about the tree’s heavenly properties, but it’s called the Tree of Heaven – let it be, for heaven’s sake).

Property prices across Kennington will continue to outperform other parts of London. Despite this, no new estate agents will open in Kennington. Yet another estate agent will open on Kennington Road – Lauristons is coming soon – grrr.

2015 will see the return of Kennington’s own Florence Welch. She will be sampled by Rihanna and spotted in Sally White. Will she release a new album? Never mind that – the question on everyone’s lips is when will she start her guest column for Kennington Runoff?

Florence Welch at South London Pacific

Florence Welch at South London Pacific

Check back tomorrow evening for our predictions for North and East Kennington (formerly known as Elephant & Castle and Walworth).

our West and North West Kennington predictions for 2015

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2015 will put North West Kennington on the map. This is the area south of Westminster Bridge Road and west of Kennington Road, and it is arguably the least visited, least known part of central London, despite some lovely buildings and smaller parks, Lambeth Palace, and Beaconsfield. Plus it’s yards from Parliament and it has the Thames running down one side.

Old Paradise Gardens, North West Kennington

Old Paradise Gardens, North West Kennington

2014 was already a big year for North West Kennington with tonnes of new riverside developments plus the new look Duchy Arms. 2015 will be even bigger thanks to the opening (finally) of Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery. The gallery will feature works from Damien’s collection including artists such as Francis Bacon, Banksy, Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, Sarah Lucas and Pablo Picasso. Entry will be free of charge. More info here.

Newport Street Gallery

Under the leadership of the entrepreneurial Justin Welby, surely this will be the year that Lambeth Palace opens to the public all year round.

West Kennington (previously known as Vauxhall) will also experience another year of change and growth. We are cautiously optimistic about the plans for the gyratory. New housing developments will lead to more scenes of sheikhs looking bemused as clubbers pass them on the way home.

Watch out Russell Norman – Counter – a new restaurant in the arches near Vauxhall station – will open soon and looks set to be a new entry in our Best Restaurants in Kennington list.

Come back tomorrow for our central Kennington predictions for 2015.

Duchy Arms – now the best pub food in Kennington?

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Duchy Arms - kenningtonrunoff.com

The Duchy Arms used to be an old men’s pub (their old website is still live), then after it closed it was briefly a squatted “community centre” with classes on how to feel comfortable with female body hair and such like.

Next we heard of it was an article on the website of an unpleasant but popular newspaper whose name we prefer not to write, reporting that Prince Charles’s chef Visen Anenden had quit to become the Duchy’s head chef, with investment from Prince Charles’s valet Tim McCandless, and the pub (located on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall) would be serving some of the Prince’s favourite dishes. All of the above live in Kennington except Prince Charles who owns Kennington but weirdly lives elsewhere. The newspaper also reports that Tim’s co-investor is Kowsar Hoque. Could this be the same Kowsar Hoque whose “customer is always wrong” attitude has brought such colour to his Kennington Tandoori’s TripAdvisor page?

So anyway, we finally made it along to the Duchy for Comfort Tuesdays, where they serve comfort foods such as chicken kiev, Home Farm at Highgrove (that’s Prince Charles’ farm) veal burger, and apple crumble. We had the globe artichoke, salsify and chard macaroni cheese which basically a posh version of a rather good dish Pret a Manger have started doing recently:

Duchy Arms globe artichoke, salsify and chard macaroni cheese - kenningtonrunoff.com

And the Home Farm at Highgrove Welsh lamb shepherd’s pie:

Duchy Arms Home Farm at Highgrove Welsh lamb shepherd's pie - kenningtonrunoff.com

Both were pretty much flawless. Could this be the best pub food in Kennington? We need to go again on a different night but yes, we think it could. Visit their Twitter to see their menus.

The wine list starts at £18 and stops at £29.50 for a dry sparkling rose. For real ale fans, they have Seafarers on tap for £3.75 a pint, as well as London Pride, and four guest ales in bottles

They’ve done a decent job on the interior as well (not that you can really tell from this photo):

Duchy Arms interior - kenningtonrunoff.com

So if you value great food, get along there soon and often – the Duchy Arms needs support. When we were there, there were ten customers including us. When we walked past on Saturday afternoon, there was one person in there that we could see – the barman. It’s not the most prominent location (on Sancroft Street), but it’s only a quarter of a mile from The Dog House and The Tommyfield and it’s well worth the effort.

Our message to the Duchy Arms is: sort out your website and your marketing – if you put half as much effort into this as you do into your food, you’d be rammed every night. And don’t let Kowsar near your social media.

Update: the Duchy Arms do have a new website, here.

Zeitgeist at the Jolly Gardeners – the only place to watch the World Cup Final

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If you’re going to be in London rather than Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, there’s only one place to watch the World Cup Final – London’s premier German gastropub, Zeitgeist in North West Kennington.

Zeitgeist at the Jolly Gardeners - kenningtonrunoff.com

 

Zeitgeist is located at The Jolly Gardeners pub on Black Prince Road, which has 120 years of history as a pub. In common with every Kennington pub of a certain age, Charlie Chaplin’s dad used to drink there, and scenes from the films Snatch and The Calcium Kid were shot there. Since Zeitgeist moved in, the colour theme is black, inside and out – not so jolly anymore. But the schnitzel, schweinebraten, leberkaes, and German beers like Weihenstephaner and Krombacher will soon cheer you up.

They will be showing the World Cup Final on their 4 x 3 metre screen and their 60″ TV. Pay £10 in advance and you will get guaranteed entry, a shot of Vodka Brause and a Currywurst/Bratwurst roll. More info from their black website.