It’s that time of year again when romance is thrust upon the British public, so to make it easier for our readers we have put together another short guide to how to survive Valentine’s day in Brixton.

Our ideas are set out below, with links to our full reviews if you want more details. In terms of special deals we couldn’t really track many down (but do let us know if we missed any!).

Satay Bar have their own special menu, including a Lotus sharing platter to start and specials such as slow cooked lamb cutlets in a sweet soya and chilli sauce and pan fried salmon curry. In addition, the slightly alarmingly named ‘Happy Endings’ dessert menu is also new, with a Valentine’s chocolate box and pink champagne sorbet. This place tends to be quite lively, particularly on a Saturday night, so isn’t ideal if you are looking for an intimate, quiet night.

The Lido Café are also offering up a special set menu. We actually gave this place a big shout out on Valentine’s guide last year. In the crassest way possible … this place is SO pretty. Alongside a Rhubarb Fizz, some of the choices include a scotch egg and oysters to start, with trout and guinea fowl for main. To finish there is a Valentine’s sundae for two and a chocolate mousse. The set menu will set you back around £45 for three courses and a coffee. This is a bit pricey but as more people seem to throw all the money they can at Valentine’s these days, I’m sure this won’t be a problem for some.

Seven have hinted at some special hundreds and thousands themed cocktails so definitely head there for a nightcap or as a beginning to the evening. It’s filled with candles, so that’s got to be romantic right?

Other venues we’d suggest for something a bit special include:

Salon – much like Seven as it’s intimate and filled with candles, plus the food is wicked

Casa Sibilla – mainly for their Prosecco and Italian tapas, perfect to share.

Effra Social – they’ve got an amazing hidden dining room in the back and have also got a sharing menu (get the duck for two!)

As it’s not all about the food, in terms of drinking venues we would suggest the aforementioned Seven, the new Brixton addition Shrub and Shutter down Coldharbour lane and The Wine Parlour on Atlantic Road.

If you don’t fancy any of this I suggest heading to Effra Tavern or Trinity Arms for the evening (or whole day) and grabbing a pint of Red Stripe and a packet of pork scratchings, because it’s just another day, and a Saturday at that. Just make sure to finish off the day with a takeaway from Refill.

Big love to you all x

Attempting to provide more round-up entries in response to requests by friends and followers means we are being a bit slower than usual in the rate of posts. There is, after all, some sort of limit to the times we can eat out. And this one also took a little time because although we are prepared to eat almost anything in serving our readers, the weight we added over the Christmas celebrations has meant some dietary restrictions. This particular topic has doubtless increased our cholesterol level.

Breakfast to us is the first meal of the day – luckily Wikipedia agrees. This, of course, means it can be taken at any time and, although we are not late risers during the week, we certainly are at weekends. However, all the breakfasts described in this post were eaten before noon. This is really just the first installment in covering a substantial topic that illustrates the variety of what’s on offer. In particular, there will be more to come on that topic of regular debate; where to get the full English variety. Continue reading →

Eatinbrixton’s intrepid explorers went out for a night (well actually more than one) in search of Brixton’s perfect cocktail. Our recall is helped by the pictures, although our joint memory is hazy on a few establishments that came later in the evening just prior to going home and pouring ourselves into the sofa. We have already reviewed most of the places we went to for their food (see links), although in some cases it’s surprising to see how long ago this was.

Altogether we visited the following –

1. Shrub and Shutter: (see our full review here) (http://www.theshrubandshutter.com/)

2. Tea and alcohol (@tea_and_alcohol  #drunkontea)

3. Rosie’s (see our full review here) (http://www.rosiesdelicafe.com/deli/deli/deli.html) 

4. Three eight four (http://www.threeeightfour.com/)

5. Kaff (see our full review here) (http://www.kaff-bar.co.uk/) 

6. Satay Gallery (see our full review here) (http://www.sataybar.co.uk/)

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This is the first in our brand new series of blogs on how to eat in Brixton and also cater to any special dietary requirements you may have. First up we are tackling a diet that has plagued one of us for many many years – how to eat gluten free.

With gluten free diets now being synonymous with celebrities, for our youngest writer her childhood was full of the struggle to steer clear from the dreaded wheat. Although home cooking meant meringue birthday cakes and rice krispie treat eggs for Easter (mum was a proper hero) when it came to eating out, gluten free never appeared as an option on menus. However this has drastically changed in the past few years with it being given the same status as vegetarian and vegan in some restaurants.

In Brixton of course there is the obvious Vozars which provides a fantastic set of dishes which are all gluten free so you don’t have to study the menu too carefully. But there are several other restaurants that provide low gluten meals without really advertising them, so we have made a short list and would be happy to add to it through suggestions from our readers. We have mentioned those dishes that are definitely low gluten or no gluten but there are always pitfalls, so we cannot guarantee no wheat. We also mention if they sell gluten free alcohol – this is beer as, of course, wine is fine!

1 Vozars – has a wide range of gluten free offerings from a Venison burger to Risotto cake. They also have desserts, like the best Victoria sponges I have ever eaten! They are light and smooth but not too sweet. The also offer gluten free beer too.

2. Ichi-ban Sushi – being a Japanese restaurant there is always a problem with soya sauce, however you can avoid this or ask if they have a low gluten option. This is one of our favourite restaurants which is now open on more days since Ichi-ban boy has taken over from his Dad. We particularly like the Donburi dishes and their homemade Teriyaki sauce as well of course as all the sushi.

3. Mama Lan – is Chinese so has the same soya sauce problem and there is an overall shorter series of dishes on offer to those who are gluten intolerant. We would recommend the spicy chicken wings and the ribbon tofu.

4. Honest Burger – now do a gluten free burger bun which you just ask for when ordering your burger (there is a slight price difference). It’s definitely one of the best gf burger buns we’ve ever had, and it doesn’t fall apart in your hands (horray!). We aren’t certain whether the chips are covered in flour – so please ask about that.

5. Wahaca – have a policy of telling you what to avoid if you have a high gluten intolerance level. This is completely different from providing a limited choice and we hope that others will follow this policy. They tell you to avoid the guacamole and the sweet potatoes (I think they coat them with flour when they fry them) but there are loads of things left to choose from. So try the steak and the corn tacos.

6. May Foods – It is easy to eat gluten free here as the main starch is cassava or yam. So be brave and try the Banku, the Kenkey (fermented corn dough) and the Jollof rice

Do let us know if we have missed any!

65 Brixton Village Market, Coldharbour lane,London, SW9 8PS

Book through Edible Experiences – http://www.edibleexperiences.com/p/216882085/Papis-Pickles/240001/South-Indian-Sundays-Brixton-Cornercopia

Breakfast 10.30 to 12.30

Brunch 12.30 to 3.30

In residence from 14th September to 2nd November

Papi’s Pickles have now joined a long line of guest chefs at Cornercopia. Appearing on Sundays Papi’s pickles offers a South Indian Sunday breakfast and brunch at reasonable times for the earlier risers and the laggards. The food is said to come from the Navaratri Festival, which means 9 nights in Sanskrit – Navaratri represents a celebration of the Goddess Amba and at this time of the year is referred to as Sharad Navaratri which is the most important festival. The reason for mentioning this is not only because the menu does but also because it comes with lots of dishes with different coloured peas and beans (black-eyed, mung chick, green moong, soya etc) which are integral to this celebration. All the food is vegetarian and gluten free or lactose free or both. There is a very limited set menu for both breakfast and lunch which offers either a coconut masal dosa with the spicy potato filling or two plain dosas. We chose one of each and shared but we advise you to have the filled ones unless you really do not like potatoes. Continue reading →

We polled the public (who follow this blog) to see what their favourite restaurant in Brixton was. Last year’s winner Upstairs has sadly closed (not due to a lack of custom). This was a surprise result as it was not in the vibrant Brixton Village but a few yards from Lidl on Acre Lane. This year the list of restaurants had grown so we had to cut it down to a reasonable list but incorporated some of our favourites and a range of cost and culinary offering.

Although we have tweeted the results we thought we would also mark it with a blog post too. As our readers know we try to ensure our anonymity when we visit a restaurant and therefore could not tell the winner in person. We decided to stop waiting for a selfie from the staff at the winning restaurant and have gone ahead with the post. If we do receive one we will insert it here.

We left the poll up for a couple of weeks and we would like to announce  that the winner was ……….dah, dah …. SALON………. Again the winner was not in Brixton Village but is in the heart of the market –  Market Row. Salon offers a choice of small plates to accompany a drink or a full set meal. It focusses on good local and well sourced produce which you can also buy in the ground floor deli (see our posts).  Like last year’s winner this is not cheap food but is clearly a favourite for those special occasions and the food is really good so worth the outlay. We have often noticed the birthday and anniversary celebrations and with the bigger tables and improved kitchen this is the place to choose.

Although Salon was the winner it was closely followed by a Brixton staple – Franco Manca. The place where there is always a queue but it doesn’t take long to get a seat and the pizza is definitely one of the best in London. Almost every restaurant on the list did get a vote so clearly they are someone’s favourite although the vote this year was more limited thank the last one as we put better security on it so restaurants couldn’t keep voting for themselves.

Even though Salon was the winner the coming Brixton Flavours – http://www.brixtonflavours.com/ – will provide a chance for all to showcase their wares.

 

So we’ve hit three years of the blog and to celebrate we thought we would allow our readers again to choose their favourite place to eat in Brixton. We did the same thing last year to celebrate two years, check out the post here.

So, what’s happened in the past year? Well for the blog we’ve hit 97,000 views, 120 posts and accumulated a fair few Twitter followers. In terms of food in Brixton, places have changed hands and names, plenty of new faces have appeared in the market and the surrounding area. It seems there is no stopping the restaurant and foodie reputation that Brixton has accrued in the past few years.

Continue reading →