With an array of delectable cuisine on offer, south London is home to a number of restaurants awarded with a Bib Gourmand. Discover inviting gastropubs, traditional tapas bars and imaginative Indians with this guide to the area's best restaurants.
A great team of established restauranteurs have teamed up with Spanish chef Jose Pizarro to set up this wee (only 30 covers) tapas and sherry bar in Bermondsey Street. With a market fresh daily changing menu Jose offers diners a creative wine and sherry list which complements the inventive dishes. Jose Pizarro has all the bearings of a celebrity chef having appeared on BBC's Saturday Kitchen and UKTVFood's Market Kitchen and with his book Seasonal Spanish Food published in October 2009 by Kyle Cathie. This, his first tapas bar in London, was a precursor to the larger Pizarro restaurant also on Bermondsey Street, adding a nice bit of diversity to a small street of very good, very British restaurants and gastropubs. Pizarro Broadgate, a 60 cover restaurant in Broadgate Circle in the City, followed three years later.
Since opening at the end of 2017, South African restaurant Kudu has garnered a host of rave reviews and even won a prestigious Bib Gourmand accolade. The latest new eatery to choose Peckham as its home, the venue is a neighbourhood style restaurant with a menu shaped by the seasons. The duo behind the restaurant - Amy Corbin and Patrick Williams - draw on their South African roots to serve a menu of creative plates created using the very best produce. Diners can expect dishes like pan roasted pollock, a clam potjie pot (a slow cooking coal pot), peri peri duck hearts and parmesan churros. The drinks menu is made up of locally brewed Peckham Pils, a curated wine list and classic cocktails.
The duo behind Italian inspired restaurant Trullo in Highbury, Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda, are behind Padella, a restaurant which takes Trullo's 'greatest hits' and presents them as eight handmade pasta dishes, made using fresh pasta rolled in the window of the restaurant, hours before service. Located in the bread basket of London, Borough Market, Padella was born out of a desire from Tim and Jordan to make quality handmade fresh pasta accessible and at £7 to £10.50 a dish these are prices everyone can afford. As with Trullo, Padella uses traditional Italian techniques with quality British produce to make real, slow cooked sauces and Italian ragus. The signature dish is pappardelle with 8-hour beef shin ragu and other options include tagliarini with brown shrimps, green and yellow courgette, squid ink tagliarini with mussels, chilli and oregano, and ravioli of pumpkin & marjoram with sage butter. Sleek, traditional and functional, the two floor restaurant has counter seating the length of the ground floor and overlooking Southwark Street.
Swapping fancy food for simple sustenance, the owners of The Manor - the same team behind The Dairy and Counter Culture - have transformed the Clapham site into Sorella, an Amalfi-inspired Italian serving hearty, rustic and delicious dishes. The recipient of a Bib Gourmand in the 2019 Michelin Guide, the restaurant has won over critics and local alike with its menu of cicchetti, antipasti, gnocchi and pasta. Dishes include truffle arancini, squash gnocchi with girolles, linguine with octopus and peppers, tagliatelle with wild mushrooms, and Hereford Denver beef and glazed beetroots.
Offering a more casual dining experience than the renowned Michelin-starred restaurant located below, Upstairs at the Trinity was opened after a complete refurb of the ten-year-old Trinity . Swapping white tablecloths and intimate dining with communal tables, an open kitchen and pine floorboards, the restaurant serves small plates that bring together influences from Britain, France and Italy. Expect dishes such as crispy pork jowl fritters, grilled veal tongue with potato salad, BBQ lamb fillet with roast onion and ricotta, and smoked haddock croquettes. Swapping formal for casual doesn't affect quality, however, with Upstairs the recipient of a prestigious Bib Gourmand award.