This is the posh bit of Peckham. Bellenden Road has become the jewel in the weave of now-trendy Peckham. It should be called Peckham Village, really, for its fancy dining spots, boutiques selling gifts and homewares, and indie grocery shops. Even its convenience store and offie now has a fancy awning that proudly reads ‘Village Grocer’. Have your thoughts provoked at a book reading, performance or discussion at Peckham Literary Festival, hosted by the Review Bookshop every November. Look out for their spoken-word and literary events, food pop-ups and experimental music events with Listening Club. Spicy Thai sharing plates at the Begging Bowl, with ‘limitless’ rice and a bowl of banana fritters and turmeric custard to round it off. Slightly pricy, but delicious. A slab of quality Home Counties meat (and a bottle of Spanish Rioja to wash it down) at Flock and Herd. The knowledgeable butchers use the entire animal, so you’ll find all sorts of cuts and creations here. Pick up hard-to-find ingredients for Persian cooking – like sour orange peel, dried barberries and fennel water – or tuck into sticky-sweet Middle Eastern pastries and meze at Persepolis. It’s an actual Aladdin’s cave. Fancy groceries (including old-school tins and unpacked veg) from General Store. JH Beulah Eco Couture clothes at Threads, which also has a haberdashery in the back. Fuel those brain cells at Arcadia Missa, an events space launched in response to austerity. Its salons have tackled topics from how art relates to politics to ‘a lesson in anti-apathy’. Watch an indie flick in the cosy Back Room Cinema, which returns to The Montpelier (just off Bellenden Road) in September. Learn how to pair chocolate with different types of wine – through practice! – at a workshop in the Melange chocolate shop.
Try an epic masala dosa or a sea bass curry at Ganapati South Indian Kitchen. Decorated with saturated hues and serving homestyle cooking and street-food-inspired dishes, it has a cult following for good reason. Local ales at the intricately carved dark-wood bar at the Victoria Inn. The polished-up nineteenth-century boozer has armchairs, shelves filled with books and there are tables out front for sunny days.