Peckham Bazaar

So rules are made to be bent and broken, and my North East London remit almost certainly could be bent to stretch down to South East London. For it is on the East side of the city after all?

I like South East London. If I wasn't in Hackney, I'd almost certainly be living down there somewhere. Although the roads aren't much fun for cycling, and Elephant and Castle roundabout would be a daily thrill. But it's leafy, hilly, down to earth...and has a burgeoning foodie scene.

Peckham seems to be the epicentre of South East London's boom, with some hipster happenings like Frank's Campari Bar atop a multistorey carpark, and plenty of yuppy happenings on the "villagey" Bellenden Road. Just a couple of blocks away from all the hubbub of Rye Lane is Peckham Bazaar, sited in an old pub on Consort Road, which I visited last October.

Peckham Bazaar specialises in food and wine from the Balkans, and have a big smoky grill outside, which most food is cooked on. You can smell the grill wafting down the street as you approach, giving you an instant holiday feeling. It may be the only restaurant in London specialising in food from the Balkans, which is a bit of an oversight, eh, restaurenteurs? It's one of the most fascinating and beautiful parts of the world, and has some excellent food and wine to boot.

The establishment is superbly run. It feels like you're going to a mate's house for a barbecue, with the grill outside, with some big communal tables and a few smaller ones, and very friendly, informal service. The winelist is knowledgeably talked through; they didn't have any left of the Croatian red I fancied, but we were recommended an excellent alternative from Greece. It's worth saying I've barely seen a menu of Eastern Mediterranean wines as good as this in the Eastern Med, let alone in London.

We kicked off with grilled octopus and pork souvlaki. The octopus was served with lightly pickled mini vegetables (carrot, cauliflower, cucumber, onion), with a whiff of fresh dill about them. They complemented perfectly the meaty, smoky chewiness of the octopus, which was cooked to perfection.



The souvlaki came with a crisper selection of veg - carrots with carraway seed, and fennel, with a side of sumac topped yoghurt. A generous drizzle of top notch olive oil, topped with a splosh of vinegar, made the whole thing fiendishly addictive.



The selection of main dishes was impossible - I was wild at the idea of every dish on the menu. One of my friends had a North African flavoured dish of quail with harissa potatoes and an orange and olive salad - full of perfumey, punchy spiciness. My other friend had a Greek inspired pork chop with butter bean casserole - the herbs on that pork were just out of this world, and the pork was cooked to perfection.



I had lamb and venison adana kebabs - a twist on my Dalston ocakbasi favourite. Served with rich and deeply flavoured beetroot and walnut, and offset by a crispy, fresh fennel and sumac salad, this dish was an incredible mix of flavours.

The portions are generous, so sharing one dessert between three was the only realistic option for this late lunch. We had chocolate and cardamon cake, served with red wine roasted figs and mastic ice cream - a Levantine recipe that makes the ice cream a bit stickier and sweeter. Yes! Again, the flavour combinations were inspired and perfect.



Just writing up Peckham Bazaar has reminded what a perfect meal this was; one of the best I had in 2013. And now I remember that I need to take all my friends here. Since I went it's had some incredible reviews, including by the Standard's Fay Maschler, and appeared in some venerable Best of 2013 lists (here, here), and you probably need to book a couple of weeks in advance for a table now. But it's worth the effort, worth the trip down to Peckham if that's not your end of town, as you will be rewarded with an unforgettable, fresh, high quality meal that will knock your socks off. Do it!

Persia via Peckham

A few weeks ago we took a little trip down to South East London. My London knowledge is very north-centric but I am routinely tantalised by blogs and reviews and tweets of SE London's burgeoning culinary offerings, but being wrapped up in my studies, I hadn't yet had the opportunity to visit this corner of town and sample it's greatest hits. On a separate note, as we consider our future housing possibilities, it is clear that much of North and East is becoming ridiculously pricey, even for people on pretty decent salaries, so a little cycle down south also served the purpose of exploring the side streets and high streets and asking 'Could I live here?'.

Top of my list was Persepolis – a Peckham cornershop specialising in Persian stock cupboard ingredients, fresh produce and cultural artefacts (shisha pipes, music and much more). Mrs Cornershop is Sally Butcher, who has published a Persian cookbook and is just about to bring out another: Veggiestan. She also runs a dryly comedic and insightful twitter feed that I've been following for a while, tempting me down to SE15 to stock up on rare ingredients. We also called in at Anderson & Co, a fancypants deli on Bellenden Road, a gentrifying strip of Peckham that estate agents will have you believe is some kind of urban shangri-la. And zipped rouund the streets of Peckham, Nunhead, Camberwell and Telegraph Hill. All surprisingly hilly.

So after a delicious slice of courgette cake with lemon frosting and a Square Mile coffee at Anderson & Co...



...we hit up Persepolis. It was beautiful inside: busy, colourful, lots of hand-written notices, many different varieties of pickles – pickles for all tastes and cuisines. Everything was laid out nicely and the selection was incredible. Pretty much any spice you could imagine was in stock, and in generous, well-priced bags. Most impressive was the selection of fresh specialist produce, including breads, vegetables and sweets that you would really struggle to find elsewhere. I just bought dried barberries, dried sour cherries, dried rose petals and a couple of jars of Persian pickled cucumbers, perfect for making Salad Olivieh.

I decided to try out a few of the ingredients in a Persian meal at home, and particularly practice my tahdig – the classic Persian way of cooking rice. I served with a tangy lemon chicken and a simple salad of tomato, cucumber, herbs and pickles. The tahdig can be made various ways and every Persian cook will insist their method is the best. I did a bit of googling to try and work out a relatively straightforward method for my first – it went a little bit like this:

1. Rinse the basmati rice you need (at least 75g per person – this is pretty tasty, and people will want more!) several times until the water runs clear
2. Soak for at least an hour in lightly salted water
3. Drain and place in boiling water - boil until cooked (maybe 8 minutes or so – don't want it to be mush)
4. Leave to drain; meanwhile, in a thick-bottomed saucepan heat a bit of oil or butter, enough to coat the bottom, maybe add a sprinkling of sugar.
5. Once the oil is hot, tip in the cooked rice, but don't stir! Just make 4 thin wells into the rice and cover with a tea towel, then a lid (wrap the flapping bits of tea towel into the handle.
6. Take a few strands of saffron and put in half a cup of boiling water – allow to diffuse for a few minutes, turning the water a light yellow, then pour into the thin wells. Carry on cooking for up to an hour, but 30-40 minutes should be fine.
7. You will then have a beautifully fragrant rice, with a caramelly, perfumy, crispy base. Mix it up a bit and serve!

I mixed in dried barberries, which I'd soaked in soaked in water and then caramelised in butter and sugar before putting the boiled rice into the saucepan with oil. From googles, it seems like chicken and barberry rice is a classic combination. I used this recipe for the lemon chicken – the sauce was AMAZING. I couldn't have enough of it, so lucky I made too much.



So I'm definitely sold on Persian cooking, and look forward to developing my repertoire further, especially for veggie friends once my copy of Veggiestan arrives. On South East London, I wasn't fully swayed, but having such a brilliant food store nearby is definitely a big pull-factor!