Category Archives: Vauxhall

RVT Sports Day in Spring Gardens

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Our sports reporter Mark has been collecting a great deal of dust so we’ve finally given him an assignment. He wholly recommends the very fun, charity raising, and inclusive Royal Vauxhall Tavern Sports Day at the back of Spring Gardens on Monday 31 August from 1pm. Because we’re all about charity.

For the uninitiated, Sports Day is our own little Notting Hill carnival, with soca and steel drums substituted with handbag throwing, tug of war and drag queens.  The event is composed  of approximately 10 teams, usually dressed up and with great names. As you can imagine, there is a definite comedy element to the proceedings but is MC’ed by some professional sports reporters who corral events into a semblance of actual competition. The various tasks (egg and spoon, the 50 metre mince, drag race relay, etc) are constructed in a knockout format with the winning team being crowned at about 5pm. All proceeds go to charity LGBT Hero, which promotes health in the lesbian. trans and gay communities.

This event is free but bring some cash or a tappable phone as there will be charity buckets and volunteers about, and there is also a raffle.  The day is certainly not limited to a specific demographic and there are a number of families there with kids, older folks, and an overall sense of mirth abounds. There are bars, music and mirth being consumed. We would never presume to tell you how to live your life, but for maximum enjoyment we might suggest a picnic consisting of ultraprocessed food scored from the corner shop. The website indicates a kickoff at 1, but is usually about 1:30.

Why there aren’t more events like this is a mystery to us, like the continued existence of phone boxes or announcements on the tube banning E-unicycles. And whats an E-unicycle?

The Daebak Reunion

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In our relentless pursuit of  gastronomic excellence, sometimes referred to as gluttony, we recently revisited Korean joint Daeback in Vauxhall. Daebak hardly needs our support as it’s always rammed with on trend young foodies which is a good sign. Or it could be a horrible sign. Anyway, our visit was inspired by our recent office discovery of hot new acts Stray Kids and Blackpink. In the real world they’ve been around for over a decade and have played Wembley Stadium. But when you’re stuck working in an underground bunker one loses the sense of time.

Daebak has a varied menu, including Korean classics (fried chicken, bulgogi, bibimbap) alongside more traditional Japanese dishes which are also served in Korea. We are again joined on this excursion by office ‘fun guy’ Phil from Accounts.  We wanted the classics and chose Korean fried chicken and beef bulgogi, along with some steamed rice – all to share. The chicken is available in various sizes and with a variety of sauce options. One of these was sweet cheese but Phil murmured/slurred something about that combo being “just whack” and so we opted for soy-garlic sauce. The chicken was salty and super crispy with a great deal of sauce suitable for dipping. It was all boneless, and suitable for our bone averse culture. The small option is an easy starter for two or a mains for one.

Moving on to the main event. The bulgogi (say it like a pro… bull-gah-gi) was something that Phil was expecting to be spicier although was pleased with the generous helping of steaming finely sliced beef strips. This had quite a sweet and savoury quality and very moreish. If Phil had done his research and was remotely sober he’d be aware that bulgogi is rarely spicy. You’ll need to look elsewhere on Daebak’s menu for that, and spicier options abound. However, there are spicy additives on every table. On previous visits we’ve enjoyed the fermented, intense cabbage based bibimbap.

One feature of Daebak is the quick service, making it more suitable for a midweek treat.  There are Korean beers, sojus (alcoholic fruit drink) and wine. Phil made good use of the quick service and beers and the result can be found in the photo he took on the right ‘of the whole table’..  The crowd tends towards twenty-somethings and all-in-all, it’s a great value stop.

Best element – Cooling and sweeping open doors with Vauxhall vistas.

Worst element –  Cooling and sweeping open doors with Vauxhall vistas.

Three Buds

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In this climatically challenging spell we’re having, ice cream becomes less of a luxury and more of a need. We’ve just undertaken an almost unheard of face to face interview with Sarah, who’s just opened gelato/coffee/bagel spot ‘Three Buds’ right in the middle of Vauxhall park. The buds refer to Sarah’s kids aged  3, 5, and 7. How she’s managed to start a business with three little ones whist we struggle to find a dropped paper clip eludes us, but this isn’t about us.

Sarah’s lived in Greater Kennington (Vauxhall) for 10 years and recently left her job in the City as she spotted a hole in the market for a quality café in Vauxhall Park. She was inspired by seeing her neighbours and kids using the park and wanted to extend that community feel by creating a space where they could relax. The concept of her business is to select food that she would want her kids to eat. So the gelato has no artificial ingredients found in creams you might get in Tesco (a supermarket). In fact, their gelato is sourced from the same supplier that’s used by the Italian embassy.  Whilst there we indulged on (don’t judge us) pistachio, vanilla and strawberry, Belgian chocolate, strawberries and crème, and salted peanut butter, the latter being vegan. All rich and delicious. And if you’ve never eaten five gelatos at 10am it’s a whole different vibe.

We don’t usually accept freebies but as we’d already broken the fourth wall by pitching up in person we thought ‘screw it’ and accepted a creamy and balanced  iced latte and a raisin bagel with homemade berry crème cheese. This was an example of breakfast fare and Sarah explained that they have a range of lunchtime bagels as well. The bagels are sourced from NYC and ours was doughy and excellent. Sarah road tests all of her goodies, such as coffee beans, before they hit her café. When asked how she makes margins work as food prices increase, Sarah put on her sunglasses and said, wearily, ‘I don’t know’. So this is our call for you to pop over to Vauxhall Park and say hello to Sarah and her new local business. Oh, and buy things.

Free Cycle Repairs and Free Bikes to Ride!

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As most staff here at the Observer are on a very low wage, we spend a large part of the day researching free things with the flimsy pretence that we’re trying to help people. And today we take a healthy departure from our usual ‘eat and drink until you’re broke’ posts by telling you about Mr. Bike. Mr. Bike is an initiative by Cycling UK with an aim to get people back on the cycling road by providing simple repairs and to teach you how to do them yourselves. Here are the upcoming clinics. Free, just turn up!

Tuesday, 7 July (today, people!) from 4pm at the Pimlico side of Vauxhall Bridge

Saturday, 11 July from 11:00am Outside the Costcutter in Stockwell Green, SW8

Monday, 13 July  from 4pm at the Pimlico side of Vauxhall Bridge

Tuesday, 14 July from 4pm at St. Annes church, Vauxhall (in front of Vauxhall Park)

Saturday, 18 July from 10am Corner of Vauxhall and Jonathan St. Vauxhall

Saturday, 25 July from 10am Tea House Theatre, Vauxhall

Tuesday, 28 July from 4pm Dog House Pub, Kennington

And if all this healthy business wasn’t enough, London’s Santander Cycles will be free on Sundays throughout July, as Transport for London is offering unlimited 60-minute rides every Sunday all month from 5th to 26th July and all the codes you need are on their website. And as you are all responsible adults here, we would like to remind you that cycling on the pavement and hitting people is illegal. And yes, this includes intolerant Jehovah’s Witness people flogging books.

A Building and a Smell Tells a Thousand Words

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Buildings in Greater Kennington have stories, and sometimes smells. The story of what is now Vox Studios is a living metaphor for how Vauxhall has evolved over time. From brewery to Marmite factory and from a homeless charity to a Gen Z pop up office space this is the four stage life of a building that reflects how we have changed and the smells we’ve tolerated.

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From the dawn of the industrial age until the 1960’s our patch of south London provided a much needed repository for smelly things that London needed but didn’t necessarily want on its front door. Victorian Greater Kennington was punctuated with vinegar works, soap factories, coal spewing industries and of course Gasometers. So Vauxhall proved the ideal HQ for the New London Brewery Company. From 1897 they produced beers for over 78 local pubs. It was a major regional player in the drinks trade, employing hundreds of local people to work yeast, logistics, and deliver barrels. The present day car park was once filled with horses, carriages and doubtless heaps of acrid horse poo. Sadly, due to the extremely competitive nature of the drinks trade, our mighty brewery went into liquidation in 1925.

With all those hops and stills hanging around, when the mighty Marmite folks began sniffing around for a London HQ the brewery was an ideal spot. Part of the late Victorian building was pulled down and a more suitable edifice created in 1927. For the next 40 years Marmite was produced and hauled away by the lorryload, and the internet is full of tales of the aroma of the area. With Gasometers, Marmite, and a pickle factory (now Beefeater HQ) basically back to back the funk factor must have been overwhelming.

As smelly factories moved out, Vauxhall still acted as a repository of things London didn’t want to look at – the homeless. Older residents might remember the wonderful homeless charities Thames Reach and Centrepoint in Vauxhall, and when St. Mungos was looking for its first building to house the homeless, the old Marmite site seemed ideal and from 1973 it offered 200 beds to the most vulnerable.  Since its humble days at our little factory, St. Mungo’s has become one of the UK’s largest homeless charities and helps tens of thousands of people a year.

Skipping jauntily ahead to its most recent incarnation. The Workspace group has built a massive extension and has styled the factory as ‘Vox Studios’ with the forecourt smell of hops, Marmite and horses being replaced with £5 skinny white lattes. Some might view the young tech types that it attracts as being good for the local economy. Others might see them as contributing little to the economy other than by making home prices higher. Making it yet another thing that Vauxhall doesn’t want but nevertheless needs.

If you want to watch a creepy, AI generated film about the smells of Victorian London, watch away! But you might need a nice shower afterwards.

Jack White at Newport Street Gallery

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Once you’ve written probably the best known guitar  riff of the 21st century you’d think that life is pretty much downhill after that. But clever Jack White from the White Stripes thought of a backup long before creating the chant a from thousand terraces. His first ever public art exhibition, These Thoughts May Disappear, is an overview of White’s artistic space outside of music. Some of these works are from the 90’s but most have been created specifically for this exhibit/salesroom at Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall. And yes, amongst us we figured out that a terrace isn’t just a place where you gossip and sip Rose.

At first glance White’s artworks are pop art, Tim Burton-ian inventions to the extent that you expect Helena Bonham Carter herself to pop from behind a sculpture, but they invite a closer look. People who are aware of the Stripes work (not us) will detect his colour coded references to the Stripes back catalogue. An upstairs room acts as a nod to White’s start as a Detroit upholsterer and features a stripey table with a levitating ping pong, as all good tables should possess.

Gallery one is comprised of a number of small ceramic figurines which all bear a striking resemblance to White himself, which to us acted as sinister, almost Trumpian introduction to the exhibit. In the third gallery we encounter White’s mythical Pallet Cleanse Corporation, which repurposes redundant pallets into glamorous objects of adoration, often in high gloss. As if you forgot the identity of the artist, there are stripes of every sort to remind you. And apparently references to songs we’ve never heard of.

After the furniture jumble sale with aforementioned levitating ping pong, the third room becomes immersive and allows us to play with all sorts of Moog synthesisers and other fiddly bits which integrate into the works. The overall impression are of works manufactured out of household objects from a man shed in the back of a garden,  which across this impressive group of more than 100 sculptures, paintings, photographs, and pieces of furniture White achieves.

Is this the evolution of a talented artist or a bored, washed up rock star trying to capitalise on his name? To think in these binary terms rather defeats the purpose of art like this. If you enjoy art for art’s sake, does the artist really matter? And as it’s free who cares, as a seven nation army can’t hold you back.

These thoughts may disappear is on now until 13.9.2026, so you have no excuse to get over there. And for those of you who have no clue who the hell we’re talking about, the video is below.

The Simply Bread Revisit

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We recently paid an overdue revisit to takeaway sandwich joint Simply Bread in Black Prince Road in Vauxhall. It’s run by the team from the excellent Jolly Gardeners pub a few doors down. Sandwiched between the two was Ginger Provisions, their noble but doomed foray into the retail supermarket world which itself deserves huge plaudits.

For this meal we were once again joined by our gastronomic collaborator Karen from the Finance team. Still resplendent in her post GLP appearance, she ordered the falafel and hummus sandwich, citing that it was vegan and therefore, in her own parlance, ‘totally healthy’. When we pointed out that falafel is deep fried, Karen replied ‘whatever, its vegan’. Karen observed that the falafels were not made on site, and had probably spent much of their brief life in a very cold place (ie a freezer). What offset this was a delicious hummus and well roasted peppers and courgettes. Overall Karen proclaimed it to be a flavourful and substantial addition to her day. If not quite as virtuous as she cares to admit.

Your scribe had the spicy tuna sandwich served on granary bread. The spice kick was furnished by Korean chili flakes augmented by those tuna bad boys peppers and sweetcorn, mixed with a guilt laden level of mayonnaise. With both sandwiches the portions were huge, and could easily have been nibbled on for the rest of the working day but of course were devoured quickly. In addition to lunchtime sandwiches, Simply Bread opens at 8am and offers the usual amenities of teas, coffees, flat whites, and pastries before you travel to work. Even if that travel is only to a laptop in the corner of your bedroom.

If you’re a restaurateur reading this, please be aware that we get loads of offers of free food from establishments wanting us to darken their door. We praise you, but this rather defeats the spirit of this website. So if you see a gaggle of overworked yet glamorous people lurking at your corner table, it might just be us but you’ll never know.

Because we all Need a Fresh Start

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Establishments reviewed by the Observer have an unfortunate habit of going bust shortly after they’ve been benighted with our pixie dust, and thus was the case with Unique at 63 Black Prince Rd. in Vauxhall which uniquely managed the feat a mere five weeks after our review. The new occupant is coffee shop ‘Osoji’, which roughly translates to ‘fresh start’ in Japanese.

To these events we usually invite Phil from accounts but he’s lookmaxxing at the moment and unable to even drink a cup of tea. When we pointed out that tea in fact has no calories he muttered something about controlling the amount of fluids in his body, which is funny as he’s never said that in a pub. Moving on, Osoji has the regular staples such as loose leaf tea, cappuccino, flat white, Americano and others.. and on our visit we encountered ACTUAL ITALIAN PEOPLE. We didn’t understand what they were saying but they certainly looked content with their espressos and macchiatos. Thrown into the mix is also a nice assortment of pastries

The demographic of Osoji consists of earnest dog walkers, mums dropping their kids to school, and folks scurrying to work. Customer service facing local businesses live and die largely on their ability to engage with customers and this was in evidence on our visit, as the staff were funny and engaging. It appears that new owner Nancy already knew some of the punters as she worked there before, and it shows. Overall, Osoji is solid spot for a quick brew or to work (they have WiFi). And Osoji, if you’re reading this please be aware that we love your subtle nod to Japanese design

Roam Community Cafe – End the Cycle of Jinxism!

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We often find ourselves strolling past a former Victorian pub at the corner of Tyers and Johnathan St. in Vauxhall and long ago consigned it to ‘jinxed property’ status, as it’s variously been occupied by everything from a creche to a jujitsu studio. It’s with great glee that we can announce that it’s now a community owned coffee shop called Roam with a soft play and role play area downstairs. And for those of you unaware of the concept of soft and role play, it’s about toddlers playing on safe surfaces as opposed to what you might undertake on any given Saturday night.

On the tranquil ground floor Roam serves the usual battalion of pastries in addition to espressos, flat whites, and soft drinks. Our tea was just £1.50. For those lucky/unlucky enough to have little ones, there is a lift down to the basement café. For £4.50 parents can enjoy a range of toys and activities suitable for under 5’s, and they even have a slide. Again, we’d like to remind our readers that the slide is just for kids. In our now famous clandestine guise as normal people, we got chatting with the owners who explained that the concept was derived from them being mothers of little ones themselves and were seeking a place where both the kids and parents can have some variety while chatting with other parents. Both owners also live locally, which we found doubly exciting.  

The ingenious concept behind Roam is that you can support a children’s café without actually having to see children. Don’t get us wrong, we love kiddos. In fact some of us in the office were once actual children ourselves. The Observer celebrates every (good) local enterprise which occupies vacant spaces and especially those which are female owned and operated. On your next work from home day, check them out and end the cycle of jinxism!

#3 Ten Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ 1 Sunday Roast)

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The Coriander

For reasons purely relating to research we quality controlled Coriander on New Year’s Eve, 2025 and it still deserves the number three spot.

Greater Kenningtontonians are almost as opinionated about their curry as their Sunday roast (which this years winner will surprise you all), but we find that the best hands down to be The Coriander in Vauxhall. We are aware that such a bold assertion is controversial and might make you want to hurl tarka dahl our way but since you don’t actually know who we are that’s not likely to happen.

Coriander specialises in North Indian, Bengali and Nepalese cuisine. The garlic naan is just right – not too thick and herbs going through it. For side dishes, the  baingon motor (aubergine) is  a standout treat, and their other starters cover all the bases of North Indian food. For the mains, our favourites are the chicken tikka naga (above) with hints of cloves, cumin and loads of heat.  All the good curry house standards are also in evidence, and we particularly like the handi laze, which is spicy chicken with chillies and fragrant cardamon, giving some zing with added lemon. And as with most Indian places, there are a range of vegetarian options. There are also a huge range of rices, and we prefer the good old fashioned pilau. And what would ANY good curry house without some slightly tacky murals?

Honourable mention in for Indian food goes to proper old school curry joint Gandhis in Kennington Cross which just missed our list. As you can see by the celebrity strewn pictures in the window, if it’s good enough for Richard and Judy, Neil and Christine Hamilton, and some lady who’s a dead ringer for Hyacinth Bucket then it has to be good enough for us mere mortals and may return to the list one day.