Brixton Village: Casa Sibilla

I was saying before how difficult it has been in the past to go out for decent pasta.  Now two places open practically next door to each other in Brixton Village market.  Casa Sibilla does a lot more than just pasta though.  It's got a daily changing lunch menu and is open for dinner on days when the market is open late.  Lovely salads and more substantial dishes are all available in a lovely setting.  They even do cooking lessons.

Brixton Village: Bellantoni's

Market Row in Brixton was the lunchtime place to be for a while.  This was down to Franco Manca, which got rave reviews from basically everyone.  It even made it into newspapers that only use the words South London if they sit next to 'postcode wars'.  Then came Rosie's (of the Spooning with Rosie cookbook) and Wild Caper.  What makes it nice is that it sits next to the South American butchers and West Indian and African grocers that made the place interesting for a lot of foodies anyway.  Now it's Brixton Village's turn.  This is a very similar covered market that sits just opposite Market Row.  A series of rebuilds and an influx of new restaurants, cafes and delis again sit next to places that have been there for years.  I want to take longer to explore it, but to kick it off I thought I'd talk about a small pasta place in there called Bellantoni's.

Restaurant Review: Polpetto

Hype is a funny thing, so are bandwagons.  They can stop you judging somewhere on its own merit and this happened to me at Polpetto.  Even though I enjoyed my meal, I was expecting fireworks and that's because Polpetto and its bigger brother Polpo have been the object of an exceptional amount of praise - Time Out is admirably exempt from this, though the underlying reason that with two other similar establishments this is not requisitely trendy enough is predictably obnoxious as ever.  I was thinking about the hype surrounding this place and trying to pin down the reasons behind it.  Firstly I suppose is the location, the same room above the French House that the sainted Fergus Henderson started at.  More than that though is that it provides a very strong, balanced and homely Italian menu that was once difficult to find.  In doing this it replicates the formula from Polpo and Boca de Lupo of providing this food in small and shareable portions so you can eat through a decent amount of the menu on one visit.  Obviously this also means slightly less food for slightly more money, but variety is after all the spice of life.  Without all the hype this would be a great place to have a good glass of wine and well prepared Venetian food with the odd stand out dish thrown in.