Brixton Market

Casa Sibilla

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Address: 67/68 Brixton Village, Coldharbour Lane, London, SW9 8PS

Telephone number – 077 9249 2112

http://www.casa-sibilla.com/

email: info@casa-sibilla.com

Monday: Closed, Tuesday: Closed, Wednesday: 11am-5pm, Thursday: 11am-11.30pm, Friday: 11am-11.30pm, Saturday: 11am-11.30pm, Sunday: 11am-5pm

Casa Sibilla is an authentic Italian restaurant in the heart of Brixton Village. The market used to be full of sharks and fish of varying colours with vegetables that had to be boiled for days and then still seemed uncooked. It now has Italian restaurants – not only Italian but which actually say they serve food from particular areas of Italy. Casa Sibilla serves us food from Puglia and Piedmont. We have visited on and off but had not reviewed it for some time – so here goes. We booked – yes booked – on Opentable. This is certainly more organised than they were – or anyone is – in Brixton Village. Continue reading →

The Provincial

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Address: 21 Market Row, Brixton SW9

Provincial has been known as the place where you do not know when or if you will get the food you ordered. We decided to test this again after we had a recommendation to try their ceviche. Now we know a little something about ceviche having learnt how to prepare it on the Amazon and eating in the best ceviche restaurant in Peru – showing off I know but we wanted you to know that we have got some expertise in judging this dish and its authenticity.

Provincial opens its doors so that it flows into Market Row. With its colourful orange interior and the wall mural of Peruvian life it does have the feeling of a South American restaurant down to the rickety chairs and tables. They can take larger groups as we saw on the Saturday night that we visited. The waiting staff were all women overlooked by the manager who pops into the restaurant from the kitchen to deliver food directly to the tables.

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Nour Cash & Carry

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23 Market Row, Brixton, SW9 8LD

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Although everyone at EatinBrixton greatly appreciates the culinary delights that Brixton now has to offer, it is hard to ignore that these additions to Brixton have come with both perks and downfalls. The rent hikes in the market are beginning to push out those businesses that have been serving the residents of Brixton for years, this fact was even mentioned in a  4 page spread in the Evening Standard magazine a couple of weeks ago – click here to view. Therefore we are starting a new venture for the blog. We are giving ourselves the task of trying buy everything (perhaps the majority) for one meal from one local shop. We will lay out the prices, what they had and hopefully promote buying from local independent shops in our beloved Brixton.

To begin we start with the one shop that has been spoken about a great deal in the debate of the gentrification of Brixton, Nour Cash and Carry. It’s currently getting coverage on Urban 75 and the Brixton Blog, because it’s facing a significant increase in its rent and service charges, with a petition being promoted in its defence. Basically it sells fruit and vegetables at low prices and a wide range of Caribbean/African/Middle Eastern /Asian foodstuffs. From salted lassi, through to pomegranate molasses, a range of marinades for jerk chicken and palm oil to an impressive range of herbs and spices. If you are into cooking food with powerful flavours, this is the place for you. It’s also a family-run business.

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Salon – Upstairs at Cannon and Cannon

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address   – 18 Market Row, Brixton, SW98LD

telephone: 0207 5019152

email:  info@salonbrixton.co.uk

http://www.cannonandcannon.com/restaurant/

Salon at Cannon and Cannon has little changed in decor from its previous incarnation as just upstairs at Cannon and Cannon. There are odd tables from sewing machines and large tables for sixteen, the arrangement allowing for squeezing past with balanced plates. What has changed is there is now a kitchen upstairs for preparation and the menu.

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Wishbone

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Wishbone

Address: Unit 12, Market Row, Brixton Market SW9 8PR

0207 274 0939

http://www.wishbonebrixton.co.uk/

Twitter: @wishbonebrixton

Wishbone’s reputation precedes it. With the hype surrounding its opening, there were mixed reviews. Time Out for instance loved it, but the feedback from Brixton Blog was slightly less favourable.  After attempting to grab a table during opening week, we finally made it back on a Wednesday before Christmas.

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Jalisco

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Address: 1, 48 & 49 Granville Arcade, Brixton Village Market, SW9 8PR

Jalisco is a Mexican restaurant just opposite the very popular Kaosarn in Brixton Village. As it was previously a Columbian restaurant (which unfortunately we never got to try out) I must honestly say we didn’t notice that the place had changed hands, so when we headed out for an evening of Columbian food we were very surprised.

I feel that I may mention a lot in these reviews that I have one ultimate type of food that is classed as my favourite, Japanese, Thai etc. but I’m going to carry on regardless by saying that Mexican really is up there as some of my all-time favourite foods. With the spices, coriander, sour cream, guacamole, meat or fish and a big dash of heat, the flavours and ingredients of Mexican food make it too perfect for words. That said getting good Mexican food in London is hard. Yes you have the Wahaca’s and your Chipolte’s, but good local decent Mexican food is a rarity I find. Although there is already the staple Mexican in Market Row, Casa Morita, our visit there wasn’t incredible and we haven’t returned since, mainly because we found it way overpriced for the quality and quantity of food served. El Panzon is the complete opposite.

With a kind of disarrayed decoration to the place and tables outside to sit on, which I’m sure will be lovely if this darn Summer would arrive, this is quite a basic restaurant. There is also an upstairs seating area which we didn’t get to see, but makes me feel comfortable that there will be no Honest Burger type problems with getting a table if I wanted to return.

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The Provincial (formerly Tapas Pa’Ti)

~ eatinbrixton ~ 6 Comments

Address: 21 Market Row, Brixton SW9

Another of the new restaurants popping up in Market Row is Tapas Pa’ti (translated to Tapas For You) a place advertised as serving home cooked Spanish tapas. With an open front and tables both inside and out, Spanish music playing in the background and the red brick décor and dark wood the place has a real feels of a traditional Spanish bar.

Before I begin on the food I must point out that the eatinbrixton gang are frequent visitors of Spain, meaning we are huge fans of tapas. One thing I love about tapas is the environment that you eat it in. With baking heat, Salsa music playing in the background, a leg of ham hanging from the bar and usually a couple of regulars who seem to always be hanging around, all create the mood of a Spanish bar. Luckily this place creates that for us (although don’t rely on the weather!).

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Prima Donna

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address:   25-27 Market Row, Brixton,  SW9 8LD

http://www.primadonnabrixton.co.uk

I never wanted to start a review with the sentence ‘The problem with this restaurant is…’ but I don’t feel creative enough to say it another way. So … the problem with this restaurant is its USP (unique selling point). It has an Italian name, a Portuguese/Brazilian style of food at dinner and it plays music from Radio 1. Described as an cafe/restaurant the breakfast menu looks English yet lunch seems to be more Brazilian. I quite like novelty but this is so eclectic that may be difficult for passers by to understand (and be drawn to) its open doors. This is a shame as it probably deserves encouragement.

This is a new restaurant in Market Row rather than in Brixton Village and it builds a new epicurean alleyway particularly as the Village is getting fuller and fuller and hard for the casual visitor to be sure of getting fed. Small tables (for two) are inside and outside. Its white walls have little adornment (well there isn’t much wall in there) and across the back wall is the kitchen.

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Brick Box

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address: Brixton Village, Brixton SW9 8PS

telephone: 020 727-4221

email: hello@thebrickbox.co.uk

http://www.thebrickbox.co.uk/brixton.html

Brick Box, in the heart of Brixton Village, describes itself with some hyperbole as a place for art, love and magic. We were not totally convinced; however, it does serve food, so of course we had to review it. With the usual wooden tables and mismatched chairs, it squeezes in tables at angles in the small internal space and outside in the alleyway so it has much seating. It is extremely popular so at 6.45 on a Friday the outside tables were full and we were lucky to even get an inside table. This was in comparison to other restaurants which were relatively empty at that time. One explanation fir this might be the happy hour which starts at 5pm.

The venue says it provides for a number of events including screenings, live art (?) and theatre which will be a bit of a coup given the size of the place. Most events seem actually to happen in their Tooting site although the walls are covered with art.

This community arts group have partnered with Senzala in Brixton to provide the food- a  range of sweet and savoury crepes and galettes – and of course a fully licensed bar which seemed to be attracting the most custom. We ordered a Caprinha and a lemon daiquiri to get us into the spirit  and, sorry but they were both a bit of a disappointment. They were more like alcopops rather than cocktails so we wished we had chosen the wine.

The menu comes in two section – the savoury and the sweet crepes. There is some allergy advice on the menu and you can get a wheat, gluten, lactose and egg free gallette which is what we chose. We ordered the Senzala and the Caramelised goat. These were very similar – rocket and cheese (gorgonzola or goat’s cheese), caramelised red onions and mixed herbs with the addition of sun dried tomatoes in the Senzala. They were plump and the gallette was thin and crispy but stuck together enough to allow you to get all the bits into your mouth at the same time. We enjoyed them but we want to point out that if you highlight the caramelised red onions on the menu then they do need to be caramelised and not just a bit sweet and limp.

Service was fast for ordering and helpful  – pointing out that we should try the homemade chili sauce as we would never have noticed it in the sugar container. A little of it went a long way – but it does add spice to the cheesy mix. We were surprised at how much better the galettes were on this occasion from a previous visit when we had the Spaniard which was a bit limp with too little filling. We didn’t repeat the choice so we can’t verify a change in this one.

We didn’t have a sweet crepe but they looked more variable with mixtures of the following ingredients – bananas, nuts, Belgian chocolate (white, milk or dark), rum, coconut, nutella and maple syrup. We just went to Lab G for an ice cream – two pancakes in the same meal definitely seemed one too many.

Our bill was £21.00 for two including the drinks and they do provide tap water on the table. Wine is about £15.00 and cocktails around £6.00

We might go back next time for a cup of tea and a sweet pancake which would make a change from the cupcake offerings in most of the other tea shops in Brixton Village.