Ice Skate Vauxhall – 2 for 1 tickets tonight

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

Vauxhall Spring Gardens has now reverted to its earlier name, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, and this Christmas it’s starting to live up to its name again as it plays host to a big ice rink, Ice Skate Vauxhall:

When we went on a cold Sunday night it was a bit of a ghost town, but it has had a lot of press since then so might have started to fill up. Anyway, we used to skate at Somerset House most years but it has been too full in recent years to really enjoy the skating, so there’s something to be said for a modestly popular skating rink.

If you go tonight, December 17th, you can get two for one tickets by entering 241VX1 into the ‘promo code’ box when booking tickets at www.iceskatevauxhall.co.uk.

There is also the UK’s largest real Christmas tree maze, which costs £4.50 to enter, so we didn’t:

And there’s a bar with outdoor seating, selling much needed hot spiced cider and mulled wine:

There are various food options including a converted Routemaster bus selling fish and chips, and The Swing Grill selling toffee apples amongst other things:

It doesn’t get much more Christmas-y than that.

Duchy Arms – now the best pub food in Kennington?

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

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:

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.

Carnival del KERB at The Paperworks

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

OK, The Paperworks is technically outside the borders of Kennington but it’s nearby, it’s run by North Kennington’s own Corsica Studios, and it’s great so we’re including it here.

It’s a temporary, outdoor street food, bar and music venue in a long-disused space owned by Peabody.

With a train line running along one side and the remnants of a factory at the other, it looks like something Secret Cinema would have built to host a dystopian film screening, but it’s not – the iron protruding from the brick wall is authentic industrial debris that has been there for decades.

It’s open Friday to Sunday evenings and tomorrow sees their third of four markets by street food specialists KERB (there are also more limited street food options on Saturdays and Sundays). We went along last Friday, when it was Time Out’s no. 1 thing to do in London. There were craft beers, ten or so food stalls, live music and DJs with a Latin flavour, and a cool crowd leaning young but covering all ages.

Once the weather gets cold the plan is to convert it into more of a covered space, then eventually flats will be built here, so make the most of it while it lasts.

Tomorrow’s event runs 5pm to 11pm at The Paperworks, 48-50 Newington Causeway (north of the Southwark Playhouse, on the other side of the road).

Corsica Studios

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

Corsica Studios is home to some of London’s finest underground dance nights, and what many hail as the best sound system in town. It’s an intimate club located in a warehouse-style space under a railway arch on Elephant Road in North Kennington, round the back of the Elephant & Castle shopping centre.

Here’s the bar, which serves Mexico’s finest Modelo Especials amongst other drinks:

This is the stage (when we went, Snakehips were playing, the future sound of London according to Radio 1):

Visiting Corsica is a flashback to how nightclubs used to be – dark, dingy, functional warehouses where anything could happen. The clientele are invariably young and cool. It’s all rather exciting. Let’s hope it survives the gentrification of Elephant & Castle and the re-development of the shopping centre (fellow North Kennington venue The Coronet is under threat).

Corsica recently launched a new open-air venue – The Paperworks – in partnership with The Peabody Housing Trust, featuring DJs, street food, craft beers, cocktails for £6 (like in the early noughties!) and giant Jenga and Connect 4. Technically it’s outside the borders of Kennington but it sounds like such fun that we’re planning to visit and report back.

Bob Marley, Elvis Presley and The Beatles in Kennington

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

Bob visited and played football in Kennington Park in 1977. We recently came across this photo:

Plus, quite a coup for the North Lambeth L&R Club – they’ve only got Elvis and The Beatles performing tonight:

Invader in Kennington

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

Is this a genuine Invader piece above an estate agent at Kennington Cross?

How long has it been there?

Some kind of trailer for the Damien Hirst Gallery perhaps?

And how about this huge one above the Windmill Pub in North West Kennington, just behind Albert Embankment?

The Dog House’s hay bales

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

~~We have been critical of The Dog House under its new management so we thought we should point out one thing they’ve got magnificently right for summer: hay bales!~~ The hay bales have disappeared since we wrote this post. Ho hum.

Beefeater Gin Distillery

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

Kennington is the Home of Gin – Burnett’s White Satin gin was made in West Kennington from 1750 onwards, and London’s last surviving gin distillery, Beefeater, has been located on Montford Place since 1958 when it left Chelsea in a bid to move upmarket.

As part of their ongoing commitment to Kennington, Beefeater recently opened a visitors’ centre, so naturally we went along for a tour.

The museum part of the tour has plenty about the dark history of gin in London, when it was known as mother’s ruin.

Here are some different eras of Beefeater bottles:

Only four people know the recipe for the Beefeater blend – the master brewer Desmond and his three stillmen, Keith, Maxim and Leeroy. They all have to have their noses insured and under no circumstances are they allowed to visit Walworth. The visitors centre are happy to tell you the flavourings anyway, and let you sniff them: Seville orange peel, lemon peel, bitter almond, liquorice, orris root, angelica seed, angelica root, coriander, and of course juniper:

Then you step through into the distillery itself:

Beefeater are aiming to make 36 million bottles this year, all of it distilled here, although then they transport the highly alcoholic distilled liquid to Scotland to mix it with water there.

Naturally the tour begins and ends in the gift shop, which plays heavily on the patriotism:

They have a new brew called London Garden which is inspired by the flower garden in Kennington Park, and is only available from the distillery.

The visitors centre is open every day except Christmas Day, and costs £12 for adults, £10.80 for concessions, and is free for under 18s, although they miss out on the free gin and tonic at the end. From mother’s ruin to kid’s day out.

Kernel beer now available at your place

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

We love Kernel beer. It has only been around since 2009 but it has pretty much revolutionised London’s brewing scene in that time, inspiring other new breweries along the way. They mostly make pale ale, using different hops each week. And the beautifully designed label on each bottle names the hops contained within. So Kernel geeks like us end up buying the beer all year round just to find out how the Centennial hop tastes when combined with the Amarillo – very good by the way.

Check out their domination of Ratebeer’s list of the best beers brewed in England. You haven’t tried pale ale until you’ve tried Kernel.

Until recently, the only place you could buy Kernel in Kennington was Italo Deli, but now Hubbub (another of our favourite companies) have added Kernel as one of their shops. Hubbub is a food and drink delivery service like Ocado, but instead of getting all their products from supermarket warehouses, they get them from your local shops. So you can get your Kernel straight from the brewery in the same delivery as some cavolo nero from Ted’s Veg in Borough Market, some comté from Franklin’s Farm Shop in Dulwich, and some general smugness from L’Emporio Fine Foods.

Or, if you a fancy a Saturday morning excursion out of Kennington, you can visit the Kernel Brewery under a railway arch in nearby Bermondsey every Saturday from 9am to 2pm, and sample their latest brews on bierkeller-style seating. Grab a waffle from Waffle On at Maltby Street Market on your way home.

n.b. We have not been compensated for this post but we would like it to be known that we would basically do anything for a crate of Kernel – even be nice about Clapham.

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

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Kennington Runoff

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 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.

Kennington Runoff

Surreptitiously exploring Kennington, including the suburbs Vauxhall, Oval, Walworth, and Elephant since 2012

Category Archives: pubs and bars