Category Archives: Oval

Mimi’s, now Nosh at Marcellos

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Nosh is one of those wonderfully overstuffed deli/sandwich joints that you really only get in London and New York, with every corner rammed with delicious looking oils, pastas, wines, and cheeses. Located at the top of Brixton Road, Nosh used to be Mimi’s Deli, best remembered  for the giant murals depicting women eating pasta and balancing boiling cups of espresso on their heads. After a brief period of renewal it has now been reimagined as Nosh at Marcello’s. Fear not, dear reader, as Marcello is Mimi’s brother and he has the same enthusiastic fervour for his products as did his sister.

As an Italian deli Nosh sells the usual items of antipasti, meats, cheeses, pastas, wines and coffee. However, Bettina from IT and your scribe came for the sandwiches. It was Bettina’s wish to consume her sandwich at work, but as we’re already struggling to get dust, crumbs and wine stains out of our keyboards she settled for the small yet delightful seating area at the back of Nosh. She had the Italian sausage with roasted peppers, Napoletana sauce and mozzarella. She commented on the generous amount of filling saying it had the flavour profile of a sausage ragu in panini form. It was rich, filling and had a lovely sundried tomato tone to it. 

Your scribe had a tuna melt in panini form which was so well dressed with parmigiana that we thought it had been dropped by accident. It was lightly grilled and served with a salad with balsamic glaze and Italian tomatoes. A lighter but no less filling feed than Bettina’s. At around £8 to £10 we thought it was good value considering that we live/work in central London and it’s independently owned. The café is adorned with some pleasing objet d’arts and is a prime spot for just a coffee or a tempting cannoli that you can inhale with one hand whilst gliding through Kennington Park. 

Nosh also has a tempting array of dried pastas and sauces, oils, breads and panettone that would work well as Christmas gifts. They would also act as suitable pressies for Runoff staff. Just DM us. 

Gasworks Gallery. Or is it a Mirage?

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When we take a needed break from our subterranean office beneath Kennington Cross we like to inspect the offerings at the never boring Gasworks Gallery in Oval. Previous exhibits have seen the space transformed into a gay cruising area, and another featured a giant Styrofoam coffin. The current show is called ‘Mirage’ and was created by Indonesian artist and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi.

The exhibit is composed of two film reels, and the first is Mirage – Eigenstate. It weaves together analogous investigations into the nature of reality, positioning western science as just one of many worldviews. The film then explores different interpretations of reality, from Sufi mysticism through to theories of quantum mechanics. We frankly have no idea what any of this means but the film is certainly nice to look at, with lots of Arabic fonts and words spinning around. 

The second film is called Mirage – Metanoia which is set in a kind of 1970’s Hanna-Barbera retro cosmic animation, where astronauts survive rocket crashes and pixie/cricket creatures wax philosophical about the presence of god in atoms, as you do. Again the artist visits Sufi metaphysics by means of a lady crawling out of a crater. Both films are presented in an immersive setting which includes a lovely Persian tiled floor and a wall mural based on the teachings of a Persian mystic. 

If this sounds like your kind of thing, and we really have no reason why it wouldn’t,  Gasworks are putting on a symposium called ‘Strangelet’ over the weekend of 16 – 17 November and tickets are available on their website. The press release describes the symposium as ‘a weekend of presentations, talks, screenings and performances that are categorised as gharib which means ‘weird or strange’ in Sufism (no, we didn’t know that off the top of our heads).

They are also hosting a much less strange sounding breakfast exhibition tour on 27 November and tickets for that on are their website

Riar Rizaldi – Mirage is on now until 22 December and is totally free. And they have a lovely, popup giftshop as well. 

Greater Kennington Over the Years in Music Videos

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Over the years our ever changing manor has been captured in many ways, and one of those is by music videos. The videos below depict our space over span of almost 40 years.

For those of a certain age the first video is of course ‘Come on Eileen’ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Circa 1982, after the first minute the video is shot at the corner of Brook Drive and Hayles Street near Elephant and Castle. Note the kids playing by the still existing bomb damage, later replaced by mid 80’s housing. The cornershop featured sadly didn’t survive the pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BODDyZRF6

Our second video is ‘Marks to Prove It’ by the sadly defunct band Maccabees and depicts an Elephant and Castle in 2015 which was already in a confusing and quite bewildering stage of redevelopment. We must admit to a slight bias in this case as we’ve seen these boys at Glastonbury, but is very unlike us to brag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kt3aN6Ey8w

Our final video ‘Anakin’ from the grime artist Blanco and was shot in the Kennington Estate close to Oval in 2020. Note the shops in Kennington Park Road. The three videos are testament to our dynamic and ever changing environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snLsL9nz1Dk

The Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington #1

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(+ One Sunday Roast)

ADULIS

For the past fortnight Runoff staff have been fainting in the corridors in anticipation of the top spot. Or it could be the small amount of air available in our underground offices. We can announce that the best restaurant in Greater Kennington for the fifth year is Adulis in Oval. For over 25 years Adulis has served up tender and well cooked meats, huge kirchat platters, zingy stews, great service, and all the wait staff have great hair. And they were serving tasty vegetarian fare long before it was cool.

If Eritrean food is new to you, or even if it isn’t, the best launching point at Adulis is the sampler plate  called ‘Kirchat’ (there is a vegetarian version as well). It is fundamentally a selection of their best meat and veg dishes served on a platter usually featuring Kifto, which is tender meat in Ghee and to die for. All of the dishes have have a sweet and sour, almost vinegary tinge to them. They gladly pimped our 2 person serving up to 3 as we had a third diner, and the pic is below.  Please don’t let our bad photo below put you off, as not all Eritrean dishes look like cat food.

The dish above is served on a platter with a base of bread called ‘injera’, which is a leavened pancake made with sourdough (and if you run out you can get more for free). Almost all meals here are served with it and the whole shebang is to be eaten with your good hands (or cutlery for the timid). We also recommend the chicken stew ‘dorho’ with loads of herbs and further recommend the prawns. They also have some fine looking vegan options.

On the drinks front, we usually have the Kenyan beer ‘Tusker’ or a South African white. Having said that, the speciality of the house is their Adulis honey wine. We’ve had this previously and let’s just place it in the category of ‘experimental’. The place has a slightly retro Eritrean feel to it with memetoes both current and from the past. The staff are very friendly and a good chunk of the punters are (tick!) Eritrean themselves. The place also wafts with the aroma of their coffee and popcorn ceremony.

ርሑስ መመገቢ!

Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington – The Roast

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+ One Sunday Roast

24 The Oval – Best Sunday Roast

We’re taking a break from our highly subjective yet profoundly moving top 10 list to announce that the best Sunday roast in Greater Kennington is, for the fourth year in a row, the very cheffy 24 The Oval. It was also once again almost knocked off this spot for crimes against viniculture but we’ll get to that later. 

What immediately strikes you about 24 is that it is truly a temple to good food and quality ingredients. The wait staff know about the food they’re serving, and the open kitchen is a symbol of their honest approach things. During lockdown, 24 transformed itself into a farm shop with a sideline in craft bottled beers. We were very pleased to see that this little tradition continues in 2023 and they sell everything from Cava to carrots. 

As an ‘amuse-bouche’ each table of two is served with four miniature Yorkies served with a delicious gravy probably made with beef drippings (vegan options abound, however). My dining partner and Sunday Roast fanatic had the pork belly which was generous and nicely soft and sticky in all the right places. Your scribe had the lamb and the shoulder was served shredded, with the leg served in pink and fatty strips.  As it is one of their specialities, the Yorkshire puddings were large and just the right side of crispy. Both roasts were served with more hearty gravy served from a saucepan.  Also evidenced was pea puree with a pleasing consistency not unlike that of baby food. 

What strikes you about 24 is that they go in for none of that ‘small sharing plates’ malarkey, the real star of the show being the very well cooked veg. In addition to those served with the roast, we were presented with so many additional veg items that they almost fell off the table. This included cauliflower cheese and roast potatoes which were perfectly crispy but with a soft centre. The carrots possessed an intense roasted flavour and savoy cabbage also popped in for a chin wag. An unexpected mystery guest for us were Jerusalem artichokes. The mains run between £22.50 and £26 which ain’t cheap, but we feel is worth it once in a while and the portions seemed endless.

24, we need to talk about something. You stand guilty of committing a crime pervasive in London restaurants at the moment. Namely, selling hugely overpriced wine. Your cheapest bottle is a not very cheap £30, which is almost 225% above the retail price. Granted, this is unchanged from 2023. We are letting you off the hook as there is a cost of living/wine crisis but we’re watching you *wags finger*! Otherwise you make a mighty fine roast and you know it. 

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The Railings That Saved Lives

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If you’re the observant or, in our case, intrusive sort you’ve probably noticed some unconventional appearing railings outside some estates in Greater Kennington. These didn’t start their life as estate railings, but rather as devices to save people’s lives. 

Our little railings atop an emergency vehicle

At the beginning of World War 2 London was stripped of many of its railings in order to be melted down for use as armaments. Whether they were actually used for this purpose or just an elaborate morale boosting PR stunt remains a point of debate. Ironically, the iron railings were removed at the same time as 600,000 iron stretchers were being mass produced in order to ferry away casualties from bombsites. Fortunately not nearly that many were ever needed or would be in future, so London had a whole lot of beds on her hands…. 

The WW2 stretchers produced during the war were cast iron and couldn’t be melted down into anything more practical afterwards, so in a rationed post war Britain someone devised the clever idea of sticking the stretchers on their sides, welding them together, and repurposing them for use as railings outside of public buildings. In this very early version of upcycling, they were reborn as fencing and exist to this day. Today our railings attract interest from around the world but sadly, like most of the staff here at the Runoff, are not being cared for properly and are in a sorry state of repair. 

  • Kennings Way, Kennington
  • Alverstone House, Oval

Stretcher railings are a very unique part of London’s quirky street furniture and we are fortunate to possess the lion’s share right here in our anointed patch. So next time you get a pesky little idea about going to the West End for a bit of culture, just pop over to your nearest estate. There is even a stretcher railing society for those of you who have a fence fetish. But if you do join, we suggest that you keep that one to yourself. 

Harleyford Road, Vauxhall

Cable Cafe & Bar

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As many Greater Kenningtonains spend a few days working from home, we thought we would up our lunchtime review game by checking out Oval staple ‘Cable Café’ at the top of Brixton Rd. By all the brick a brac you might think you’ve stumbled into dear Aunt Flo’s house clearance after she refused to let anybody in for 40 years, but what you’re getting is a mighty fine and eclectic café. 

The daytime trade consists primarily of people popping in for hot drinks and working on their laptops (menu below), and the atmosphere is laid back and quiet. We stopped in for lunch, and the specialty is the bang on trend sourdough toastie. Your scribe had it with tuna, and Karen from finance had hers with onions. The sourdough was crisp and with sharp and abundant cheese (£6.50) . These were accompanied by two homemade lemonades, one with rhubarb. Very tart and zingy. We also had our eyes on the homemade pastries, sharing boards, and smoothies.

What Cable does ingenuously is transform itself from a lunchtime sandwich/coffee bar to an evening cocktail and beer joint. The transition happens during the 3-5 happy hour when laptops and chargers give way to candles and, on Wednesday and Saturday live jazz. There is a full bar on hand (cocktails £9) in addition to wines both bottled and draft (they’re a thing). A good alternative to the at times chaotic pubs of Greater Kennington. 

Cable Café is open from 9:30 to 23:00 (midnight weekends) and is even available to hire out for parties. We need to keep independent places like this or they may go the same way as Cable Bakery, which hs sadly gone to that big flour mill in the sky. More importantly, we need to keep it going to prevent it descending to the hellish netherworld that is the ‘bottomless drag brunch’. Because we’ve been there, dear reader, and it’s a very dark place. 

Mystery of the Vacant Lot

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Ever wondered about the existence and future of that giant gravelled eyesore of a vacant lot next to the Beefeater Distillery in Montford place? Well we’ve just been on a tour with the developers and we’re here to fill you in on what’s in store

For many years the site was occupied by Hayward’s pickle factory until it was partially destroyed in 1944. The bit that survived lives on as the Beefeater Factory. After changing hands a number of times, the lot next to it was purchased by TfL in order to have a place to store equipment and lorries working on the Northern Line extension. TfL have now partnered with Grainger Homes to deliver 139 homes, 40% of which will be dedicated to affordable living. It will be 11 floors and occupy most of the footprint of the site, with grasses and trees included. Construction will started by the end of 2023 and it will be called Montford Mews

Not what it will look like, This is the pickle factory

My first question to very peppy and well informed TfL developer Susanne is probably the question that almost all Runoff readers are thinking right now. Namely, what do you call ‘affordable’ and why is it that only people in high earning jobs appear to be living in these allegedly affordable flats? She said that Lambeth Living determine what is affordable and it is usually between 40 to 60% of the market rate. She added that people are allocated the flats based on their earnings the previous year and preference is given for people already living or working in Lambeth. 

  • Gripping site photos

On our previous tours of Oval Village across the road we asked about access to the general public and if people will offer a short cut between Kennington Lane and the Oval. They confirmed that it will, and Susanne confirmed that the public will be able to walk through the Montford site as well. There will be businesses on the ground floor, but they will be light industrial (ie offices). We were heartened to discover that the affordable living people living in the affordable flats will have access to the same amenities (gym, etc) as folks paying the full whack.  

Susanne also mentioned another very similar project that will see 450 (!!) new homes built above Nine Elms tube station. However, dear reader, it was long ago we became unable to keep up with the vertical insanity of Vauxhall,  so if you want more details click here.

Planning permission has been granted for both the Montfort and Nine Elms sites. But please don’t ask us to weigh in on planning consent as we did that once and we still can’t get that toothpaste back in it’s tube. 

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Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington

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+One Sunday Roast

#10 CAFE VAN GOGH

Coming up at the rear of our very best is vegan institution Café Van Gogh in Oval. The Café operates as a not for profit social enterprise and many of the people working there live with challenges which would exclude them from most of the job market. They also aspire to be zero waste and all of their takeaway containers and coffee cups are fully compostable. According to their website ‘our social purpose is more important than making tonnes of cash’. TICK! 

Your noble scribe tucked into the shiitake shawarma served in a bowl with flatbread. The generous portion was augmented by baked butterbeans, yogurt, dukkah and sprinkled with coriander. The flavours worked well and the meaty mushrooms melted in my mouth very quickly. In a sense it was amazing that this was vegan at all, and reflects what must be a great deal of experimentation in the kitchen. This very much had a home cooked feel. 

Mike from our IT team had the Van Gogh burger. This is a house speciality with the burger being based on shiitake mushrooms, with likely some beetroot in the mix for a bit of colour. This was at the softer end of veggie burgers but agreeable and was elevated by an excellent soft domed roll and some spicy vegan mayo. Served with this were some thin cut chips dusted with a kind of fake bacon (fakon?) powder, which was a fun addition. Mike has a very complex, and some would say tortured, relationship with vegan cheese, so it did not make an appearance. 

Overall, Café Van Gogh is a gently Bohemian and effortlessly welcoming space, and the Van Gogh prints on the wall and Starry Night ceiling reminded us of those immersive art installations that are all the rage at the moment. If you don’t take our (meat eating) word for the quality of the food at Café Van Gogh, it was recently recognised as one of the top vegan restaurants be no less than Conde Nast Traveller! They are also very much open in the evening, and sell a rage of vegan wines and beers. 

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Getting Classy in Vauxhall

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OK people, now that you’ve completed that new year’s resolution of running around Kennington Park six times, it’s time to work on your grey matter. It’s that time in the Greater Kennington cultural calendar (it’s a thing, trust us) to enlighten you about the ‘Classical Vauxhall’ series of concerts at St. Mark’s Church in Oval from 2 to 5 March. The press release boldly describes it as ‘a four day festival of live music and song, featuring top artists and four centuries of composers’. While the revival of dead white men might not sound like a merry blast, it seems that these artists have their own unique twist on things. 

The concept behind these five concerts is to put on shows that are varied, lively, and accessible to people who (like us) are not habitues of the Royal Opera House and might otherwise be a bit intimidated by this genre.  Each night is set to a theme, from jazz in Hollywood to finding comfort in chaos (very hard to do in Vauxhall) and feature a range of artists performing short pieces. The last day is a freebie and is dedicated to young artists learning their trade.  

The director of the festival and the brains behind the whole thing is Fiachra Garvey and he is joined by artists Clifton Harrison, Tamsin Waley, Rakhi Singh, and the Julian Bliss Septet. To be honest we have no idea who any of these people are – But– we have seen some of their work on YouTube and it’s beautiful. Rakhi and her amazing violin are featured here.  

Tickets are £22.15 so not exactly cheap, but a great way to support local culture and artists who have probably didn’t have much work during the pandemic. Some folks from KR towers went in 2022 and they described it as both amazing and great fun.  A nice way to get a little culture in your life without venturing much further than your local pub. 

Only 10 days to go until our ‘Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ 1 Sunday Roast)’ countdown, people! 

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