Brixton Village

Butcher Shops in Brixton

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Jones the Butcher,
Address: 1 Dulwich Rd, London SE24 0NT
020 7274 4629

About Jones


Opening Hours: Mon: 05:00 – 12:30; Tue: 05:00 – 12:30 Wed: 05:00 – 12:30 Thu: 05:00 – 13:00; Fri: 05:00 – 13:00; Sat: 09:00 – 13:00

Dombey & Son,
19 Market Row, Brixton, London, SW9 8LB
020 7274 1035
Opening Hours:: Tue: 07:30 – 17:30; Wed: 07:30 – 15:30; Thu: 07:30 – 17:30; Fri: 07:30 – 17:45; Sat: 06:30 – 17:45

Michael’s Meat Market
49 Atlantic Rd London SW9 8JL
020 7737 1069

There’s no shortage of places to buy meat in Brixton and we cannot claim to have tried them all. We are also not great meat eaters, at least when eating at home. Nevertheless, it’s time we had a look at butchers in our series of reports on Brixton food shops. The trouble is that while there are lots of shops selling meat, there are not that many I consider proper butchers. Also when you see a secondhand supermarket trolley full of carcasses being wheeled down Atlantic Road it does make you think of being a vegetarian. But there are places I have found that can be relied upon to provide value for money. Continue reading →

Brixton Flavours Festival

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So.Much.Food. From sushi and brownies to chicken and tortillas and crepes I have actually only recently regained my appetite after our gluttonous evening in preparation for the brand new festival Brixton Flavours. With the actual day not until Sunday 26th October we were invited to see what the whole thing was all about this week and also apparently to eat our whole body weight in food.

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Brixton Flavours states that it is a festival to introduce people to the wide variety of cuisines and restaurants that our beloved hometown has to offer. It was clear from the way the organisers spoke that that they were committed to making sure that they didn’t just go to the well-known haunts in town, but to showcase all that Brixton has on offer. This is something that we at Eat in Brixton are always striving to achieve so it’s brilliant to see others with such passion as well. The day ticket holders are invited to sample secret dishes not usually available on the menu from over 22 restaurants around Brixton (full list of those participating can be found here). You will also be given 15 Brixton pounds to spend in any of the participating restaurants, so incorporating the idea of boosting the local economy.

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Honest Burgers

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HB01

Unit 12, Brixton Village, London SW9 8PR

www.honestburgers.co.uk

+44 (0)20 7733 7963

Mon: 12.00–16.00

Tues to Sat: 12.00–22.30

Sun: 12.00–22.00

Amazingly its nigh on three years since we reviewed Honest Burgers. We are not great burger eaters but, for a variety of reasons, we paid a couple of visits recently, so it seemed an opportune time to produce another review. A big change is that there are now six branches across London, from Tooting to King’s Cross. So the question is, does this mean they have taken their eye off the ball or will they still offer our previous judgement “… the best burger I have had south of the river”.

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Carioca

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carioca01

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

http://www.primadonnabrixton.co.uk

This is formally Prima Donna and has now become definitely authentic Brazilian so it now has a USP (unique selling point).  It is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and not much has changed except the menu since its earlier incarnation. There are a few tables inside and they are not crowded together so you can hear yourself think above the music – much more Brazilian than previously. There are also tables in the market corridor.

Breakfast is a full English or with a twist (smoked iberico pancetta, free-range scrambled eggs & baked tomato slices on ciabatta – showing multiple influences again as iberico is from Spain and pancetta from Italy). You can be very conservative with the hamburger made with Brazilian beef (seems a long way to go for that ingredient). But we arrived in the evening – 7.00pm to miss the crowds. There is a fixed price two course menu and we chose from that one as it had all the interest we needed. It also did offer an excessive choice, which is something we are both wary . For starters there were – spicy chicken wings. braised beef empanadas, beetroot and blue cheese salad and Pao de queijo with choizo (a sort of cheese roll usually made with cassava flour but we didn’t try this one). The main course were Feijoada described as Brazil’s national dish. A stew made from black beans cooked with an assortment of meat (chorizo, pork ribs, beef and pork); Chicken Caipira – braised chicken; Arepa, which is a flatbread made of maize filled (or they say stuffed) with pulled beef and vegetables; and finally Courgette, Potato and Leek Frittata, which is an explanation in itself. THe main menu also has more grilled items like spare ribs and steak and cassava chips. Continue reading →

The Pickled Fork at Cornercopia

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Address: 2nd Avenue Brixton Village

http://www.thepickledfork.com/

for all bookings please email alex@thepickledfork.com‘

We don’t eat out much at the beginning of the week but this was too tempting. A pop-up in Cornercopia and their USP is rissoles. The Pickled Fork settles every Tuesday in the same spot and provides a simple array of salad and rissoles with real ale. Rissoles according to Wikipedia are  small croquettes enclosed in pastry or rolled in breadcrumbs, usually baked or deep fried. They are filled with sweet or savoury ingredients, most often minced meat or fish and is served as an entrée, main course, dessert or side dish. They are served all over the world and now in Brixton Village. At 7.00pm the restaurant is not full so make your way further back in the Village to get a seat fast and taste these little beauties. Continue reading →

Jalisco

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address: 1 Glanville Arcade, Brixton Village, London SW9 8PR

telephone: 0207 326 1690

After the cool days with plenty of rain on the first Tuesday when you could throw off your thick layers and sit outside Brixton Village was full to bursting and with a guest from the far north, we explored Brixton Village. Our guest was amazed. After having lived in Brixton for 10 years she had eventually ended up back in Scotland and now 10 more years later she was faced with trendy Brixton – a concept we had forgotten was novel as we were now used to seeing adverts in travel books as essential to include Brixton Village to get the cool Britain feel. 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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Mama Lan

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Address: Unit 18, Brixton Village Market SW9 8PR

http://www.mamalan.co.uk

We reviewed this restaurant early on in our blog and decided to revisit to ensure it was up to the same standard … in fact we visited several times just to be sure. One reason for returning was because Mama Lan has now opened more locations and we wanted to know if it was possible to maintain the high standards we found when it first opened. It is eponymously named after the chef’s mother and it serves Beijing street food. One difference is that the inside of Mama Lan has been remodelled to make the kitchen more accessible and still leave room for a few customers. Each table is for two and larger groups will have to shuffle the tables to make them more sociable.

This time we visited on a Sunday and early – we wanted a more leisurely brunch, so sat down about 12.30 with a choice of places to sit.  Situated at the main cross roads in Brixton Village it is great for people watching as the Village fills up at 1.00 pm. The menu at Mama Lan is not taxing – a couple of soups which seem to contain everything and lots of it, dumplings (5 to a plate) and, as side dishes, chicken wings, vegetable balls and seaweed salad. We headed into the dumplings (pork and Chinese leaf and the vegetarian version – Woodear mushroom, spinach and vermicelli noodle) and we also chose a portion of spicy chicken wings. We thought we would need other choices for three people but it turned out none of us had a large appetite that day.

With a minimalistic decor and straightforward menu this place knows what it’s about and for a short Sunday lunch seemed ideal. We really liked the dumplings with the pickled carrot and cabbage accompaniment. Our favourite was the vegetarian ones as they had a more interesting texture. The pork, although tasty, was a bit dangerous as the sauce sprayed out as soon as you bit into it. The chicken wings arrived first and were well cooked, spicy without being overpowering and juicy. We mention this last word because as we ate we couldn’t prevent ourselves from comparing this restaurant with the one in Market Row – Happy Dumplings. The food was just not comparable – in Happy Dumpling the chicken wings were like sawdust and the dumplings were best forgotten.

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Mama_lan3We washed everything down with a pot of Monkey Paw green tea, a bottle of Tsing Tao beer and a China Sour mocktail (apricot and lime juice).

It cost a mere £16.50 for drinks and food and we left with satisfied – although we did pop along to Lab G for an ice cream to complete the meal. We will definitely be visiting both Lab G and Mama Lan again.

 

Recipes from Brixton Village – Book Review

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Recipes_from_Brixton_Village

Miss South (with contributions from the traders of Brixton Village)

Published by Kitchen Press (RRP £15.99) 182pp

www.kitchenpress.co.uk

This is a love letter to Brixton Village from established local food blogger, Miss South. We’ve linked before to some of her excellent recipes and this new book promises much more of the same. It also well produced and will be a practical asset in the kitchen, unlike too many of today’s cookbooks that are aimed more at the coffee table.

The format is straightforward with sections for meat, fish and so on. The unique feature, as indicated from the title, is that all the recipes come from or are inspired by the traders in Brixton Village. So it doesn’t cover Market Row or elsewhere in Brixton but it still provides plenty of material.

We are looking forward to trying more of her recipes and top of the list are Jerk Chicken from Fish, Wings & Tings; Jollof Rice from MTK African Restaurant (yet to be reviewed here but coming soon); and Aubergine Ragout from Casa Sibilla. And I will have to make the Anzac biscuits from Federation Coffee – the main reason for going to Federation Coffee as their coffee is a bit hit and miss.

Being Brixton based there’s a particularly strong section entitled ‘Seasonings’ which illustrates the cultural diversity in the Village. West Indian, Italian, Thai, Portugese, Columbian, Japanese, Ghanaian and even British (tomato chutney) – it’s all there.

But this is not just recipes. There is a history of the covered market (with a contribution from Anne Fairbrother of Cornercopia), especially the transformation over the last four years, and a useful description of the Village’s food shops and eating places.

We at eatinbrixton have welcomed the change in the market, which has more or less coincided with the three years that we have been writing about the meals we have enjoyed, as well as a few others we have found less satisfying. The change has not pleased everyone, with complaints mainly about ‘gentrification’ but also about the loss of the more traditional traders. On the issue of what you can buy, the fact is that the range of what’s available is vastly greater than it was in the market’s nadir and there’s little if anything of significance that’s been lost. And on gentrification, what we see is a thronged market packed with people enjoying themselves.

This is a must buy for anyone who likes to eat in Brixton.

Fishmongers

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For some time I’ve promised myself that I will write about shopping for fish in Brixton. Because one of the most fantastic things about central Brixton is the number of fishmongers. Across the country fishmongers have become an endangered species, largely replaced by supermarkets. But here in Brixton we have more fishmongers than there are in the whole of Hertfordshire. By this I mean proper fishmongers, where they offer a good range of types of fish with knowledgeable staff who will clean and fillet your purchases. This is great, of course, but it does pose a problem when you have to choose which shop to use. So, unlike earlier posts in our series about shopping, I’m not going to focus on a single shop.

I’ve actually lost count of the number of shops in Brixton that sell fish but not all of them, in my mind at least, count as proper fishmongers. Quite a few of the Afro-Caribbean grocers sell some fish and there are others that specialise in fish but just sell it frozen, straight out of the boxes in which it arrived. I rarely use these, apart from the fish section in the Wing Tai Supermarket in Electric Avenue which is often useful, particularly for prawns.

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