Six of One Mentee Special
Where to eat in London by Saira Banu, Emefa Ansah, Riana Austin and Vitória Croda. Plus the updated Six of One Map!
Just over a year ago, we started the first of our six-month mentorships intended for restaurant writers (or soon-to-be-restaurant-writers) in London. The standard of entries was so high that we decided to take on four writers, two more than we had intended! Since then, we have has the pleasure of working with Emefa Ansah, Riana Austin, Saira Banu and Vitória Croda on various pieces of writing, some which have been published on Vittles already (like Emefa’s Three’s A Crowd and Vitória’s essay on encountering the British meal deal), and some which we hope to publish later this year.
To mark a year of the mentorship, we have put together our first mentee written Six of One: six restaurants loved and recommended by all four writers. It covers Taiwanese food in Islington, Nigerian food on the Old Kent Road, two Korean restaurants that showcase the best parts of living in London, and two Caribbean fusions that could only occur in a city like ours. We hope you enjoy the writing, and that you visit some or all of these great places!
We will be announcing the next round of Vittles mentorship applications in the spring of this year. In the meantime, we can strongly recommend that new and unpublished writers apply for the Guild of Food Writers Newcomer award, which is open to people who aspire to be food writers, but have never had anything published on a paid basis. Entries close on Monday 19th January.
1. Caribbean Delight
I order takeaway for more than the convenience of not doing the dishes; I do it for the chat that will inevitably spill into the containers. So when I walked past the sign that announces ‘Caribbean (and Chinese Crepe) Delight’ just across from Camden Road station, I was so ready. Double the cuisine, double the options, double the chats.
Run by two women brimming with conversation and ready to dole out (sage) wisdom and (coriander) crêpes and curry, Caribbean (and Chinese Crepe) Delight is really made up of two separate, delicious entrepreneurial efforts sharing a name and a pot of chopped herbs in the middle. Aunty#1 (Kim) slathered ghee on the plantains she was frying fresh for me as she told me cocoa butter was the secret to her soft skin. I told her I loved sweetness in my savoury curries, so she insisted I get the brown stew chicken and prescribed the right ratio of plantain to chicken to rice and peas, tailoring the meal to my palate.
Aunty#2 nudged me with the sizzle on her crêpe. She let me choose what colour batter went in which concentric circle – like reverse engineering a rainbow. She told me under no circumstances to choose lettuce as a filling, shattering my illusions of health, and directed me towards bean sprouts. She then violently shook the five-spice seasoning into the chicken mixture, which convinced me of the vestigiality of measuring cups as a Western invention. She topped it with sesame seeds and kalonji (nigella seeds) to stop my hairfall and congratulated me for not having the cilantro soap gene. I left the shop with food for the next two days and advice for the next decade. Saira Banu
124 Camden Rd, NW1 9EE
2. Kuma
As one of many trapped in London (by obsession, greed, family), I often spend weekends marching around, entertaining any visiting friends I’ve lost to the great attractions of the north (clean air, affordable homes). With my own interests at heart, I focus on showing them the best London has to offer in an effort to convince them to ditch their comfortable, roomy lives, and that always, always, means a trip to Kuma, a Korean and Japanese restaurant in Kennington. It’s a place you’d easily not notice. The outside is understated – unmemorable even – but inside is filled with a comforting low buzz. It’s a bit quirky, but not too weird; the bar is plastered with hundreds of stickers from Studio Ghibli films, while sweet figurines are plopped around, eyes blank, silent hosts judging tables plied with food for gluttonous guests.
Kuma lies in the Korean belt of south London, an area filled with cosy restaurants like Jihwaja, Daebak and Taeyang Pocha, but the food there stands out – it’s a place where every dish that comes out is saltier and crispier than the last. (A crescendo is only reached once the waiter stops bringing dishes to the table.) At Kuma, surrounded by good friends, I eat freely, because the food deserves to be eaten without holding back. Plates of bulgogi arrive sizzling, heat roaring from the cast-iron plate, always tempting and habitually resulting in a burn. Buoyant rice cakes swim around seaweed noodle rolls in the glossy red sauce of the gimmari ttokboki. Chopsticks move quickly as you attempt to grab pieces of salty stir-fried izakaya cabbage.
So far, I’m yet to convince a friend to move (though many have wobbled and demanded to visit again on their next trip). Thankfully, it’s walking distance from Jihwaja karaoke, where I sing away my woes and get my friends to make drunken promises instead. Emefa Ansah
305 Kennington Rd, SE11 4QE
3. Dodam Korea
Good council-estate parades are my kind of gravy. The one by my aunt’s near Old Street is justly famous: it’s got olive and lavender trees, a caff, a flat-roof boozer and a fish and chip restaurant that happens to be Fish Central, all of which are truly loved by locals.
Most importantly for me, it’s home to Dodam Korea, a sleepy gem with an intriguing menu and an excellent K-pop soundtrack. When I’m after a full Seoul-by-City Road experience, I use it as a chaser to a spa session at neighbouring Ironmonger Row Baths (jjimjilbang culture is huge in Korea). After the heat of the sauna, I’ll keep it light with barley tea and either seaweed and oat porridge or its £10 lunch special of marinated tofu, black rice and banchan (side dishes).
In the evenings it’s fun to go as a group and put the menu to work. Last time we had a vegetarian-adapted hotpot with tteokbokki, ramyeon, boiled egg, dumplings and gimmari. Generous, bubbling and addictingly spicy-sweet, it’s even better if you drink soju with it. Meat-eating friends can try ugeoji-tang (hangover soup) of beef and preserved cabbage, or four different versions of volcano fried rice.
What I appreciate most is you can come as you are: solo, rowdy or post-spa with dripping wet hair. The music is loud, the staff are chill and it’s never that overcrowded; just like faithful barflies, this is a place for regulars who wouldn’t change a thing. Riana Austin
131-133 Central St, EC1V 8AP
4. Salpiké
Last time I visited Salpiké in Brixton Village, I was expecting to encounter a different restaurant from the one I initially found. In the two months since I first ate there, it had gone viral on TikTok after a marketing professional made a pro bono campaign for William, its owner. Maybe this time, I thought, he wouldn’t come to my table and offer me his homemade scotch bonnet pepper sauce. Perhaps his jerk chicken with Colombian ‘yellow sauce’ wouldn’t be quite the same. Maybe he wouldn’t even be there at all, yelling, amid empty tables, ‘Come here, our food is the best in Brixton Village!’
Salpiké has indeed changed a bit since that initial visit. This time I couldn’t see William, and I was lucky to find a spot for my group. I kept looking for him while we browsed the menu, which spans lomo saltado, oxtail stew, and other Latin and Caribbean dishes I can find elsewhere in Brixton Village, yet never all in the same restaurant. This eclecticism is partially explained by William’s hometown of Cali in southwest Colombia, known for its salsa culture and intense fusion of flavours from its Black heritage and the country’s neighbours on the Pacific coast.
As soon as our food arrived, however, William appeared with his homemade sauce: ‘I know you like pepper,’ he said to me, remembering my previous lunch. This time, it perfectly fit the smoky comfort of the lentil and chorizo stew, a personal favourite from his tapas selection. Soon, a drum band playing maracatu passed by the front door, and William quickly stood up to check their music while keeping an eye on his customers. I quickly realised that, despite its success, Salpiké’s spontaneity has stayed the same. As the streets of Brixton Village filled with drumming sounds, we finished our lunch and joined William to dance. Vitória Croda
6 Granville Arcade, SW9 8PR
Behind the paywall: more recommendations from our mentees! Plus the updated Six of One Map with 414 recommendations on where to eat in London and beyond
You can subscribe to Vittles for £7/month or £59 for the whole year, which gives you access to restaurant recommendations from the last five years, including the Six of One map.