Take a taste tour of Pop Brixton’s brilliant street food restaurants and kiosks.
One of the greatest street food venues in London, Pop Brixton has a stunning array of food to try. While the venue hosts everything from vintage markets to jazz performances and yoga classes, the restaurants and food stalls on site are the major draw day in, day out. There are culinary influences from Venezuela to Vietnam, sinfully massive burgers and vegan salad bowls, and cheeky desserts if you know where to look. Most venues are open seven days a week, but do check the links for details. Box appetit!
1) Smoke and Salt
Get in a pickle at Smoke ‘n’ Salt, an inventive little restaurant that’s been getting rave reviews. They use old-school preservation methods like fermentation, pickling, drying, smoking and salting with local produce to create powerful, tangy plates of pure flavour. Find out more.
2) L’Amuse Bouche
Holy crepe! This French-inflected stall dishes out crepes, galettes, waffles and croques monsieur with sweet and savoury options both vying for your custom. J’aime.
3) Alpes
Don’t be a melt, head to Alpes: the permanent spot from the Raclette Brothers dedicated to all things melted cheese. Slather gooey Swiss cheese over hearty Alpine ingredients, or dunk pickles and bread in a bubbling pot of fondue. It’s a fromage sensation. Find out more.
4) Love Churros
Deep fried fingers of dough with a cup of melted Belgian chocolate to dip them in. And friends, it doesn’t get much better than that. Find out more.
5) Petare
Bringing flavours of Venuzuelan street food to Pop Brixton, Petare specialises in ‘arepas’ – substantial cornbread sarnies with serious burrito-adjacent fillings. That said, their secret weapon might be their guava-glazed chicken thighs, which beat all-comers at KERB’s 2018 fried chicken competition. Find out more.
6) duck duck goose
Hong Kong meets Brixton at duck duck goose, where Cantonese BBQ rules the roost on a concise and clever menu. Barbecued pork belly, steamed sea bass, wok-fried aubergine and a sharing dish of braised beef short rib are a few stand-out items. Find out more.
7) Franzina Trattoria
A fine Italian restaurant serves Sicilian small plates to share with friends: stuffed baby aubergines, deep-fried risotto balls, croquttes and grilled prawns among them. Those who don’t like to share can opt for delightful plates of fresh handmade pasta, with crushed tomatoes, beef ragout or calamari on the board. Find out more.
8) Maria Sabina
Named after a Mexican shaman from the ’60s, you sadly won’t be able to buy psilocybin mushrooms from Maria Sabina. But their tacos and quesadillas, prepared in the traditional Mexican style, might just transport you to a new dimension on their own. More here.
9) Don Luigi
Sample original Italian dishes from these street food suppliers: skewers of barbecued mutton, calamari sandwiches and banging bruschetta are among the morsels aiming to evoke a ‘Mamma Mia’ in Pop Brixton’s visitors. More here.
10) Sakeya
It’s standing room only at Pop Brixton’s sushi bar Sakeya, who promise to take you ‘beyond sushi’ with specially paired sake rice wine. Find out more.
11) 28 Well Hung
The steaks couldn’t be higher at 28 Well Hung: they’re dedicated to finding the best grass-fed beef in the country, aging it for four crucial weeks and then searing it perfectly to order. Bang it on some chips, and there you have it. Get to know.
12) Viet Box
Expert chefs knock out creative and comforting Vietnamese dishes from their Vietbox: banh mi, bao buns, rice noodles and fried chicken await the hungry visitor, along with plentiful cold beer. Menu here.
13) World of Wurst
This place is a real sausagefest, providing classic German-style dishes like sauce-slathered currywurst along with French and South African takes on everyone’s favourite processed edible meat tube. The wurst is yet to come – more here.
14) Made of Dough
Get a pizza the action at Made of Dough. Bringing methods and recipes straight outta Campania, this classy kiosk provides expertly prepared pizza for the masses. More here.
15) Mama’s Jerk
The chicken here isn’t just jerkin’ 9-5 – it’s marinaded for 24 hours to give it the spicy kick Mama’s famous for. Veggie wraps, fried plantain, seasoned chips and mango mayo round out the vivaciously tasty menu.
16) Baba G’s Bhangra Burger
Indulgent diner food gets an Indian twist courtesy of Baba G. (Good news for cows, in other words!) Try the vertiginous lamb burger with onion bhaji and mint cumin, for example, or tuck into the veggie-friendly paneer saag ‘naanwhich’. Bhanging stuff. More here.
17) Homegrown
Get a dose of what’s good for ya at Homegrown, where colourful salad bowls, vegan brunch, healthy wraps and raw juices are the order of the day. Guaranteed to give the old innards a good zhush. Next stop, the cocktail bar! More here.