Eco Chamber Free Event

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Kennington Runoff

Like a pig to a truffle, you can be assured that we here at the Runoff are always sniffing out free stuff for you to do. St. Mary’s Eco Church has been created by Lambeth Palace and Southwark Diocese in response to the climate and biodiversity crisis. Once a month they organise free and mind expanding talks called the ‘Eco Chamber’ and the next one is coming up right here in our manor.

The upcoming Eco Chamber will be chaired by Radio 4’s Point of View Presenter Tommy Shakespeare and he’ll be joined Green Peer Baroness Jenny Jones and Professor Joanna Haigh. The topic will be the elimination fossil fuels and carbon emissions and questions if Net Zero initiatives will be sufficient to do this. Their talks will be followed by a group discussion and all are encouraged to ‘join is with juice, a glass of wine or a beer’. The venue is the Duchy Arms pub in Sancroft Street.

The Eco Chamber takes place on 18 April and free tickets can be obtained here. And it’s a good thing that it is being held at the Duchy Arms, as the place seems go through more management changes than the Tory party and we’re a bit concerned about their future.

Email Sharon if you have any questions: hello@stmarysecochurch.org

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Greater Kennington Opens Up – The Duchy Arms

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Kennington Runoff

We’ve always felt a little sorry for the Duchy Arms and have developed a soft spot for the place. Located off the main drag, its never enjoyed the passing trade of other venues and has seemed a bit, well, lost. However, it has benefitted from one quirky trait not enjoyed by other pubs…..it has a car park. The car park has now been transformed into an umbrella strewn beer garden, so it’s moment has arrived. As it is truly outside the area has more space and circulation than the Dog House and you do not feel fork to fork next to your fellow diner. Although more spread out, it still has a lively ‘we’ve just come from football practice’ vibe about it. And great staff.

Your scribe and a Runoff colleague enjoyed the lamb kofta with couscous, flatbread and little bowl of tzatziki. It was well spiced lamb and they brought more tzatziki when requested. Another colleague had beer battered haddock with mushy peas and hand cut chips. It was described as ‘lovely, nice and fresh with a crisp batter’. As for the chips, they were definitely made fresh and had not visited the north pole. Our French colleague had the pie of the day, which was creamy chicken and leek. When asked to describe the quality, the colleague shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat. We’ll interpret that as ‘pretty good’.

If you are planning an outing to a Greater Kennington pub in the next week or so if it is within popular hours we strongly suggest that you book first. And after our sub polar dining experience we think it might good to idea to book earlier in the evening. And please remember to bundle up. Humans can do many great things, but eating dinner in a 7 degree car park requires a degree of forward thinking.

How much has the Kennington pub scene changed?

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Kennington Runoff

As much as we’ve cherished the experience of standing in the middle of Kennington Cross drinking takeaway beers out milk containers, we were brimming with giddy thrill when we learned that pubs would be re opening on 4 July. Unfortunately the top brass at Kennington Runoff got wind of our excitement and demanded we work over the weekend undertaking a covert pub crawl. Oh, we do suffer for our craft.

Yesterday your intrepid reporter and three safely selected associates began our journey at the Dog House, as there is outside seating. Ordering is at the bar behind a Perspex screen and you can drink by spaced seats either indoor or out. It didn’t feel different to many other afternoons there, and if anything was more quiet (and they were even showing football). Afterwards we decided to move to the Duchy Arms, as they seem to be the perpetual underdog in the area. With a large garden they are perhaps having their long overdue moment, and the manager at the door explained that they were at ‘safe capacity’ (pic below), which was about 60%. He also helped us to clarify a puzzling riddle we’ve had of late – ‘can you book a table just for a drink’. And the answer is yes.

Dog House
Duchy Arms

Undaunted, we then moved into Vauxhall and tried to get a table at the ever popular Black Dog. The chirpy doorman explained that they were also at safe capacity and he suggested that we saunter to the other end of Spring Gardens and try the Vauxhall Tavern. The place was very buzzy, gay and straight, and we sat on a table on the stage (!). This was unusually the only place where we needed to leave our name. It also had a very handy method of scanning a QR code and ordering at the table. Afterwards we went to The Pilgrim, but to be honest dear reader this is when our journalistic skills became a bit compromised. But we do remember that people were standing and drinking at the bar, which we’re not really sure is recommended. Hand sanitisers were readily available everywhere.

The Black Dog
The Vauxhall Tavern

Overall our little tour revealed a pub landscape that, while different, was more normal than we had previously believed. For instance, we thought the toilet situation would be a ‘raise your hand like you’re in year 6’ affair, but it seemed very straightforward. And while people sitting at tables were not distancing, different tables were spaced apart adequately. The success of Kennington pubs and the livelihoods of the people who work there depend entirely on our ability to use them safely, and our verdict is that you can.

Earl of Bedlam, king and queen of Kennington

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Kennington Runoff

London 2015’s answer to Tommy Nutter, fashion house the Earl of Bedlam reside down a little mews off Walnut Tree Walk, having previously occupied a shop in South Kennington:

Tailors to some of Kennington’s slickest suited and booted (including Mark Hill of Antiques Roadshow and Counter Brasserie fame), they also dress musical luminaries from across the spectrum – Nile Rodgers, Simon Le Bon, Goldie, Bez and Roger Daltrey have all been spotted in Earl of Bedlam garms. Nile is such a fan that he had the Earl head down to the studio to give Bedlam t-shirts to the band and Mark Ronson when he was making the most recent Duran Duran album.

Earl of Bedlam staff, clients, models, friends & family by Jill Furmanovsky for Jocks & Nerds in Bedlam Mews with horses from Vauxhall City Farm, (Mark in the hat front right, Lady C next to him)

Earl of Bedlam staff, clients, models, friends & family photographed by Jill Furmanovsky for Jocks & Nerds in Bedlam Mews, with horses from Vauxhall City Farm (Mark in the hat front right, Lady C next to him)

We are still waiting for our Kennington Runoff-inspired three-piece suit crafted from baby llama wool shorn off the latest arrivals at Vauxhall City Farm, but we are indebted to Lady C and Mark at the Earl of Bedlam nevertheless for their endless supply of local tips and information. More ferociously networked than any other Kenningtonites we can name, they are true pillars of the community. Running social media for the Duchy Arms when they relaunched, creating limited edition Bastille Day t-shirts for the Boule-In, designing the uniform for Counter staff, hosting jazz gigs, and propping up the bar at the Royal Oak (otherwise it would fall over) – these are all in a day’s work for the Earl of Bedlam, and still they find time to field stalls at both the Kennington Village and North Lambeth Parish fetes.

The Top Ten Best Restaurants in Kennington – no. 2 – The Duchy Arms

Posted on May 24, 2015 by Kennington Runoff

Positives: Some of the best pub food around, cooked by Prince Charles’s former chef. Great, hand cut chips. Get in quick before the hordes discover it.

Negatives: If you’re looking for a light bite, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is their fish pie for two:

Hygiene rating: TBC

Address: 63 Sancroft Street, London SE11 5UG

Come back next Sunday to find out the number 1.

Duchy Arms brunch – best in Kennington?

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Kennington Runoff

Yes, the Duchy Arms do brunch on Saturdays (they say from 12 but actually seems to be more like 12.30pm to 3pm) and so have become a contender for the Tommyfield’s title of best breakfast/brunch in Kennington.

This is their scrambled masala eggs, spinach, chili jam and sour cream. Very tasty and perfect for brunch, if a bit much for breakfast:

They also do more traditional options like eggs Benedict:

Their inaugural brunch menu is here, although it does change.

The food is really top notch at the Duchy Arms, and the pub doesn’t have the slight odour that the Tommyfield has (yet). All-in-all we just about prefer the Tommyfield’s breakfast menu but they’re both very good indeed.

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.

Kennington Runoff

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

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