11 June 2014

Brunch It Like Peckham

Regular readers will be well aware of the fact that brunch is by far my favourite meal of the day and Peckham, it turns out, is a surprisingly good place for good brunch spots. There's No. 67 on Peckham Road, for example, and then there's Anderson & Co on a particularly lovely stretch of Bellenden, which has a whole host of independent shops and restaurants. I have been meaning to go to Anderson & Co for yonks, and on Sunday, I rounded up the south London posse and finally got to go.


We arrived around noon — just in time to grab one of the tables in the gorgeous glass-ceilinged garden at the back. There are a couple of tables of the pavement too and a few seats inside, but on such a hot, sunny day, we wanted to be outside. The garden is all done up in shades of slate grey, with potted flowers in sconces on the walls. Two of our party were running a little late, which gave me plenty of time to peruse the epic brunch menu. Too much time, perhaps, because it was really hard to choose.


In the meantime, we ordered some coffees and I was pleased to find that my macchiato was served at a drinkable temperature. In fact, they explain this near the La Marzocco machine inside, and ask you to let them know if you want it hotter (please don't!). They use Square Mile coffee and I was very impressed with my macchiato. Saturday night at the Bermondsey Arts Club wasn't particularly heavy, but I was grateful for the extra caffeine kick.


Even at brunch, I wouldn't normally order two dishes, but I couldn't narrow my choices down any further. I started with the granola with Turkish yoghurt, and roasted pineapple with lime and poivre des indes (£4.50). It was the pineapple that sold me on this — I love pineapple and lime — and it was really delicious. So much more interesting and flavoursome than the usual granola parfaits you see. I probably would only have eaten half, but my 'main course' took a little while to arrive, so I grazed a little longer.


Next up was the scrambled eggs on sourdough toast with avocado (£6), which, again, were amazing. The eggs were creamy, smooth and the perfect consistency. When I saw how crispy the streaky bacon some of my friends ordered was, I almost wished I'd chosen that as my side instead of the avocado, but my avo was fresh and ripe and came in a very generous portion. In fact, all of the dishes were generously proportioned and very reasonably priced.


Other great-looking dishes chosen by my friends included the avo on toast with chorizo, fried egg and pumpkin seeds (£7), and the icy gazpacho with avocado ice cream, tomato and cucumber (£4.50). My second-choice main was a meatball, rocket and pecorino open sandwich, which sounded great.

The boys made room for an ice cream from Melange, the chocolate shop across the road, but the rest of us settled for a brisk walk — well, gentle stroll — to the nearest park to recline in the sunshine.

I'm already plotting a return to Anderson & Co to try some of the other brunch dishes and the burgers they've recently started serving on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Peckhamburgers, of course.

Anderson & Co. 139 Bellenden Road, London, SE15 4DH (Tube: Peckham Rye Overground). Website. Twitter.