The Garden Cafe

Watch out Brunswick House, steady on Louie Louie, there’s a new contender for the title of Best Restaurant in Kennington – The Garden Cafe at the redesigned, refurbished Garden Museum.

Let’s start with the negative – the Garden Museum have only gone and destroyed their beautiful garden! This was the best feature of the old museum – an oasis of calm and quiet featuring a 36 year old knot garden, and the grave of local, ahem, hero William Bligh. What has replaced it is a courtyard that’s nice enough but not an oasis. We’re so annoyed we might actually start paying attention to planning applications.

The Garden Museum courtyard - kenningtonrunoff.com

The old Garden Museum had a real community feel to it, whereas the new one feels more like a corporate events space. And it costs £10 to get in to the museum, so you’d have to be really interested in gardening (the cafe is free to enter).

gravestone chic

gravestone chic

But it might be worth it because the food in the new-look cafe is so good, and the space isn’t bad either – nice and light, with the courtyard along one side.

The Garden Museum cafe interior - kenningtonrunoff.com

The food is fresh, modern, seasonal and full of flavour, with a constantly changing menu.

This was a melt-in-the-mouth chicken leg, with rainbow chard and borlotti beans:

Chicken leg, rainbow chard and borlotti beans at the Garden Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

The menu is fairly short and there aren’t as many vegetarian or vegan options as we’d like (unlike the old cafe which was all veggie), but this farro, courgettes, aubergine and mint was good:

Farro, courgettes, aubergine and mint at The Garden Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

On a subsequent visit we had this starter of pigeon, cooked rare and not as tender as we’d hoped, with radicchio and elderberries for £8.50:

Pigeon, radicchio and elderberries at The Garden Cafe Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

But this beef shin lasagne more than made up for it – an awesome, mouth watering dish for £14:

Beef shin lasagne at The Garden Cafe Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

Likewise this pappardelle with courgettes and parmesan, a bargain at £10:

Pappardelle, courgettes and parmesan at The Garden Cafe Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

Kennington’s leading restaurant critic Jay Rayner got there first of course, so read his review for more details including where the chefs came from (very good restaurants).

As Jay points out, the only snag with the Garden Cafe is the opening hours:

“Lunch is served from 12pm – 3pm daily (12pm – 2pm on Saturdays).

Dinner is served on Tuesday and Friday evenings from 6pm.

Due to the busy lunch period, the restaurant only serves meals from 12 – 3pm, but outside this time tea, coffee and fresh pastries are available.”

Address: The Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB.

The Top Ten Best Lunch Spots in Kennington – no. 3 – the Garden Museum Café

[Update Nov 2015: The Garden Museum and cafe closed for redesign in 2015 then reopened with a wonderful restaurant, albeit the oasis of calm that was the knot garden is tragically no more]

The garden of The Garden Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

Positives: It’s a special setting whether you eat inside the deconsecrated church which is now The Garden Museum, or outside in their knot garden (above), near the grave of William Bligh. The seasonal veggie food is generally delicious, as are the cakes.

The grave of William Bligh, The Garden Museum garden (formerly St Mary's) - kenningtonrunoff.com

William Bligh, who hoped to be remembered for the bread fruit tree, not for being the target of a mutiny

Negatives: We had a disappointing aubergine dish recently. They operate a reduced menu on the weekends. Their opening hours are subject to change due to events  – check before you travel.

Garden Museum Cafe aubergine dish - kenningtonrunoff.com

aubergine dish which looked better than it tasted – should have gone for the quiche

Hygiene rating: 3 out of 5

The Garden Cafe cakes

The Garden Cafe cakes

Address: The Garden Museum, St Mary’s, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB

The Garden Cafe quiche

The Garden Cafe quiche

Website

Come back next Sunday to see what’s at no. 2.

Fashion & Gardens at the Garden Museum?

No, us neither, but it’s worth going to visit the Garden Museum while the Fashion & Gardens exhibition is on (until April 27th) to see floral artist Rebecca Louise Law’s installation called ‘The Flower Garden Display’d’. She has hung over 4,600 flowers from the roof of the museum (a former church), and it’s quite something.

The Flower Garden Display'd by Rebecca Louise Law at The Garden Museum - Kenningtonrunoff.com

Join Rebecca Louise Law under ‘The Flower Garden Display’d’ for a discussion with photographer Rachel Warne about The Beauty of Decay, dying flowers and the afterlife of gardens, on Tuesday at 6.30pm (tickets £10).

The museum is open every day and admission costs £7.50 for adults, but it’s free if you just want to go to the cafe, which is good and vegetarian, and you’ll walk under ‘The Flower Garden Display’d’ on your way through.

On your way out, you can check out The Garden Museum’s expansion plans, which involve re-creating part of Tradescant’s Ark. Tradescant’s Ark was Britain’s first museum open to the public, started by John Tradescant and his son John Junior, who are buried in what is now the garden of the Garden Museum. The original Tradescant’s Ark was in North West Kennington and featured a stuffed dodo, drums from Africa, weapons from Java, and a series of complaints from Walworth.

The Garden Museum

[Update July 2017: The Garden Museum and Cafe have been redeveloped since this post]

The Garden Museum (formerly the Museum of Garden History) is in the deconsecrated St Mary’s church next to Lambeth Palace in North West Kennington. Even if you’re not interested in gardening, it’s worth a visit for the good quality vegetarian cafe and the lovely garden (there’s a charge to enter the museum but not the shop, cafe or garden).

The Garden Museum exterior - kenningtonrunoff.com

The knot garden with the walls of Lambeth Palace in the background:

The garden of The Garden Museum - kenningtonrunoff.com

William Bligh lived in Kennington, on Lambeth Road in a house that is now a B&B, and was buried at St Mary’s. Appropriately enough for a site that was to become a garden museum, his grave features the breadfruit plant which he discovered and brought back to England. Presumably whoever designed his grave was hoping he would be remembered for this, rather than for being the ship’s captain who inspired the Mutiny on the Bounty.

The grave of William Bligh, The Garden Museum garden (formerly St Mary's) - kenningtonrunoff.com

The well-stocked shop featuring gifts for gardeners and books:

The Garden Museum shop - kenningtonrunoff.com

The interior of the museum:

The Garden museum interior - kenningtonrunoff.com