Over the years we’ve seen Oval Farmers Market become smaller and less relevant, which is an inevitable symptom in the evolution of our cherished patch. Well, maybe not so inevitable given that a lot things there are overpriced. So we welcome the new outdoor market that’s popped up in Elephant Park. Elephant Park Market is in the new park located just south of Elephant Road, the home of some amazing South American joints and sometimes home to gentlemen who enjoy an outdoor beverage.
Elephant Park Market is a new neighbourhood market for street food and drink, artisanal food and designer-makers, bringing together and supporting independent, local, ethical and sustainable food producers and crafts traders (yes, we’ve cut and pasted from the press release). On our visit we saw traders selling cards, pastas, biltong, honey, juices, coffee, beauty products and, umm, pencils. We have a particular weakness for those soaps with things stuck in them which look strangely edible, and they’re on offer as well.
The Market at Elephant Park runs every weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5, and features over 20 independent traders. But keep going as there is plenty of room for growth and it appears to be getting larger.
It is now established dogma that a place is in trouble when they start to have bingo nights. And they’re in even more trouble if anything they do involves a drag queen. So when our friends over at Kachori, the newish Indian in Elephant Park that we checked out last year, announced they will be having a drag bingo night, we knew that something very dire was happening and here’s how you can help.
Drag bingo is hosted by Party with Ginger and for £45 a head you have a two course, drag inspired meal (???!!) with free flowing prosecco. On top of a £10 admission this comes up to £110 a couple. Now we would never tell you how to spend your dosh, but for that kind of money we reckon you could get Ginger herself over to your gaff to rustle up a few curries while shouting out numbers. However, this for a good cause so please support them if you can by popping in for a poppadum or a drink. Drag Bingo at Karchori is on 30 October and tickets can be grabbed on their website.
Another reason we can’t allow Kachori to fall by the wayside is that its perhaps the only restaurant in London where you can eat the table wear. We kid you not.
Staying in Elephant Park and remaining on drag, a new bar and comedy club is opening and we couldn’t be more excited. The bar is listed as being gay, with cabaret and drag, but if that’s not your handbag the comedy appears to be more mixed. They’re having an opening party on 11 December and if you want to join the waiting list then enter your details over on their website. They fling open their majestic doors later this year, so stick that in the little sparkly diary we’ve been telling you to buy for ages.
As Runoff regulars will be aware, we love a good old fashioned public consultation. We especially enjoyed our visits to Oval Village, or as we call it ‘UpTown KenVo’. On these visits we challenged an architect to a game of Jenga using his building blocks, and during an illustration of how the flats inside the remaining gasholder will look, we asked if their design aesthetic was meant to give residents a taste of life behind bars. And last weekend we had the opportunity to subvert authority yet again by attending a consultation on the future of 6-12 Kennington Lane.
JewsonsScary Building
6-12 Kennington Lane is currently occupied by Jewson Hardware and the frankly quite scary abandoned building in front of it. The plan put forward by Unite Students is to build 500 (!) high quality and sustainable student rooms with retail space on the ground floor. We were told that this will be realised by erecting three conjoined buildings which are planned to be 18, 16 and 14 stories respectively. The ground floor will be set back from the street, creating a kind of town square open to the public with plantings and retail units at the ground level. It was this retail presence that interested us, and peppy rep from Unite Students excitedly told us that some of these units will be dedicated as a ‘makers spaces’. As they make things at Pizza Hut, we asked if they might be fast food joints. She replied that it would be something ‘more creative’. We assume this is code for ‘Franco Manca’. Lambeth have stipulated that one space needs to be light industrial, and we were told this could be public storage for people to safely store their bikes. Or this could be a mammoth kitchen for ‘Just Eat’. Who knows, but with this kind of optimism anything is possible!
Building on the Jewson site starts in spring 2026 with a finish by summer 2028. If you want to offer your own feedback you can use the feedback form on the website, or if you’re old school you can just email them on 6-12KenningtonLane@kandaconsulting.co.uk but be nice, as even spolit Uni students need a place to live. The website has some interesting information in their FAQ page, and if pictures of Victorian ghost people walking through buildings is your fetish then you’re in for a treat.
During a recent lunch break we paid a visit to Theos Pizzeria in Elephant. You may be aware that for two years we’ve crowned Theos as having the best pizza due to their creative toppings and sourdough base. However, with metabolisms not being what they used to be, for lunch we dropped the pizza and opted for their signature sandwich, the panuozzo.
Described as a wood fired sandwich, Theos use the same delicious slow fermented pizza dough but reformat it into a sandwich-like form. Your scribe had the sausage and gorgonzola panuozzo, which was also rammed with creamy and salty gorgonzola, grilled mushrooms, mozzarella chunks, and rocket. On the side was a red chilli which packed a real punch, so it was used sparingly.
Matilda from the digital subscriptions team sometimes gets overwhelmed with too many options, but with just four handy panuozzos to chose from she had the broccoli with anchovies, mozzarella and pangranatto. Pangranatto being a sort of crunchy garlicky breadcrumb, that might seem odd in a sandwich but was actually a nice crunch to complement the soft broccoli and mozzarella. There was a good but not overpowering flavour of anchovy to round things out and of course the bread itself was sublime.
The panuozzo is £6.50 which when you think about it, is about as much as a fancy sandwich at Pret nowadays. Matilda wanted a glass of wine but when we reminded her what happened the last time she had wine at lunch we had water and the bill was under £15. And with the mounds of cheese and filling kept us filled until dinner. As no one actually pays for this site, as we were leaving we asked Matilda exactly what she does at the office. She smiled and said coyly, ‘you know, I INVOICE’. OK.
The capacity for our community to transform and evolve is sometimes more than us mere humans can absorb. To those who don’t visit Elephant and Castle regularly, it can be unsettling to see how it’s changed over the past 10 years.
We recently discovered a charming, 22 minute short film called ‘UnEarthing Elephant’ about the people and community that sprung up in Elephant and Castle shopping centre. Shot in 2017, it’s both a celebration and an elegy to a shopping centre that people knew was doomed but not when. The touching and at times funny personal stories of love/hate relationships are mixed with tales of how the shopping centre never really worked until saved by small, independent shopkeepers, many of whom were immigrants to the UK.
Credits to the amazing Eva Sajovic, who created the piece and narrates most of it.
And we’ll never forget the erotic massage chairs……
We can see the finish line, people! Recommending the best pizza in Greater Kennington is fraught with opinionated tension and might even cause small dough based riots in Kennington Cross. We’ve chosen Theos in Elephant because of its creative toppings, great sourdough base, their delicious Pannuozzo wood fired lunch sandwiches, tiramisu, and good price point. The runner up is the newish and quirky 400 Rabbitts, in Elephant Park.
Gorgonzola
Anchovy
On the pizza front my colleague had the aubergine and Gorgonzola. An adventurous choice; the aubergine was very soft and this was offset by the sharp hit of pecorino followed by the blue hit of Gorgonzola. Your scribe had a ‘my blood pressure needs to be checked’ salt kick of an anchovy, capers, olive and mozzarella pizza. All the salty elements were balanced well, and the best element of these pizzas is that they are served on a sourdough bread that is blistered on just the good side of being burned.
Theo’s recently won an award for best Tiramisu in London, and in our opinion it is well deserved. It ticked all the boxes of ‘Italian almost trifle’ with a perfect balance of strong coffee, dark chocolate, creamy mascarpone and served between layers of soft cream.
While writing this article several staff people became rather obsessed with the very notion of Theos’ panuozzo sandwich so we unlocked the door to our subterranean bunker and headed over there. Your scribe had an Ortiz tuna sandwich with olives and onions and mozzarella dripping out. My colleague had the sausage and gorgonzola with mushrooms. Mind you, we will need to run to and from Theos 65 times to burn off the calories, but it was delicious nevertheless.
We visited Kachori last summer and it is still going strong. But is it the best Indian in Greater Kennington?
We recently inspected swishy looking new Indian restaurant Kachori in Elephant Park which has opened with some buzz. From the outside it resembles a second rate Dishoom, but inside gives way to low lighting, dark woods, and a very inviting bar. So tempted were we by the bar that two of us kicked off the fun by ordering Indian espresso martinis. When they arrived the upbeat proprietor informed us that we could eat the cups that they were being served in. As edible crockery is a new and, frankly, groundbreaking proposition at Runoff Towers, we took him up on the offer. More on this later.
The proprietor we speak of is Brindar Narula, former executive chef of Michelin starred Gymkhana, but here offering much more affordable fare. We started with two sets of nibbles: methi namkeen and nan chips. An interesting alternative to poppadums, the methi are little strips of fenugreek flavoured crisps similar in appearance to an earthworm, offered with a dip. The nan chips are fried bread strips with another dip which looked not unlike pleasing shoe leather. Both were delicious with the nan chips being the particular hit with the table. Two portions were good for four people.
This is a very dark restaurant
Lamb
One of our group had the lamb biryani, and it arrived encased in a crust to seal in the flavour and juices. With an excellent balance of spices, this was rich and gorgeous with meltingly soft pieces of lamb. Your scribe had the west coast prawn masa swimming in a pool of mangosteen, coconut milk, and palm vinegar. Huge, juicy prawns with a powerful aniseedy note. A side of palak paneer (spinach with cheese) was warm and satisfying as was the methi tadka dal (yellow lentils) rounded off the meal as sides.
Brinder explained to our little group that while he is from Mumbai, the flavours at Kachori focus on dishes from the Northwest of India. This is modern Indian at its best, with ingredients popping up (Jalapenos! Truffle oil!) not encountered in most Indian joints. Towards the end of the meal Brinder added that our rice based cups would have dissolved after 40 minutes if we hadn’t drunk the contents and then eaten the cups. Right, like that was gonna happen.
Our Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ One Sunday Roast) launches on Thursday and we are currently working assiduously on this highly scientific yet wholly subjective list. Ahead of that, we’ve unearthed a lovely Vimeo video we’d like to share with you
As Elephant and Castle is now undergoing a full on ‘Vauxhallization’ we’ve been recently waxing nostalgic for the old shopping centre. It was like that kooky great aunt you used to have in Leeds – you visited it only when you absolutely had to, was past its prime, and very fond of pink. And before you know it, they’re gone forever.
It’s OK to feel a bit conflicted about the shopping centre. On the one hand it harks back to a more innocent form of independent retail in which shopkeepers knew your name and you could be sexually aroused by a massage chair. But it was also a dangerous place rife with drugs. And not the drugs your kooky aunt took.
This uplifting and artistic video is from 2010 and makes you realise the centre was more like a community meeting for many.
From the archives, the first of our month of best history posts
Elephant and Castle has always been a haunt of the curious and suspicious type, and in the 19th was the home of several criminal gangs. The most fascinating was an all female crime syndicate who specialised in shoplifting and who existed for over a 100 years, 40 Elephants. A side hustle was blackmail and extortion, as you do.
In the 19th century, the 40 Elephant ladies were able to turn social mores distinctly to their advantage. The same outfits which were designed to conceal a scandalous bare ankle could also be cunningly deployed to conceal frocks, hats and scarves. And as they used their ill-gotten gains to ‘look the part’ in high end joints such as Selfridges, no one really questioned them when they came out of a changing room. They were also able to flout social mores in other ways, by supporting their husbands who were often idling away at home or weren’t quite as clever as the Elephants and ended up in prison.
Unlike many unruly male gangs, 40 Elephants was a tightly run and neatly organised cell of gangs that operated out of E&C but extended beyond our fair area. Apart from shoplifting, the Elephants undertook daring and ferocious daytime raids which terrified both shopowners and customers. When they were not working clandestinely they would descend en masse on large stores and ransack the place, causing chaos and confusion by entering and leaving through various doors. The Elephants would escape on foot or later by fast cars, and if apprehended wouldn’t think twice about putting up a fight as formidable as any man.
In the 20th century the most notable ‘Queen’ of the gang was Annie Diamond, below, who was raised in Lambeth Workhouse and was reportedly given the name for a predilection for punching police officers while wearing several diamond rings. She was also known for her ingenuity, for instance the gang never wore the clothes they nicked, but instead bought flashy new threads to minimise detection. While not punching officers, Diamond and her gang threw lavish parties with endless champagne and, in all likelihood, freebies liberated from Harrods. Some would call them entrepreneurs in a time when women had few options, others would call them criminals who frightened people. Either way, 40 Elephants knew how to take care of themselves.
If you want to find out more about 40 Elephants, a very interesting YouTube clip can be found here. If that hasn’t calmed you down there is even a very posh bar called 40 Elephants in, believe it or not, Great Scotland Yard.
Whoever said that dining can’t be fun? If you’re looking for a group Christmas meal or just for two of you, we love Dragon Castle in Elephant because it reminds us of the kind of mega restaurants that you actually see in Beijing. If what you want from a dining experience is Chandeliers! Plastic plants! Sullen staff! Lazy Susans! A water feature! Then Dragon Castle can deliver the immersive fun that might be missing in your life. Its also a nice escape from the impending dreary winter nights in Greater Kennington.
On the food front, it isn’t better than any other Chinese out there so we haven’t photographed the dishes but we can recommend their dumplings, which are a speciality. Chinese beers are on offer in addition to wines and spirits and this is a good thing, as it helps to be not entirely sober during your Dragon Castle experience. But with Christmas around the corner that should be rather easy.
On a weekend expect a chaotic yet endearing mix of Chinese families, people on dates, kids running around, and locals all with a great deal of mirth. A trip to Dragon Castle is as close as you can get to the sights and smells of a Beijing mega restaurant. The only letdown is that when its done you’re face with the sights and smells of Walworth Road.
