Communion, Camberwell

I recall my maiden trip down South. We visited family friends in London. "Mummy! Mummy! Look! Real gollywogs!" I yelled, pointing at West Indian elders got up in their best suits. Away for the very first time from the genteel confines of my white sliced bread Edinburgh crib, Camberwell came on like the Congo. In monotone Scotland, the only black dials I'd yet clocked were on a Robertson's jam jar or singing Mammy! on the Minstrel Show. (Readers under the age of 30, watch and weep at what topped TV schedules back in the day http://tinyurl.com/onrlmdg ) To me, Camberwell - with its Little Richard and Cliff Richard lookalikes riding in chrome-finned ice-cream-coloured Ford Zodiacs - was colourful, strange, exciting and deeply exotic. Nowadays, I'm scared to go there. Knife crime? Muggings? Too many fire hazard acrylic weaves and wigs? The latter, possibly - but it's also home to Labour big(bad)wig Harriet Harman, a po-faced PC puritan who would surely have me up before the beak for my unintended racial slur - no matter that I was 4 and it took place back when TV was still segregated into black and white. Tonight, I've been commissioned to review Communion, a live music bar beneath the Church Street Hotel's Hispanic restaurant Angels and Gypsies. Some "Jesus!" stained glass- effect windows aside, the room stylist has mercifully not gone into Hail Mary overload. But the owners have carried the theme through, with wafers and communion wine offered on each table. Musty and astringent, the mass murderous vino might as well be Pope Pius VII's piss. Thank Christ I don't follow Rome! Or wear a yellow hankie in my back pocket. Fortunately, divine intervention presently appears in the form of praiseworthy cocktails from a list that's strong on rum. Shanty town (£8, pictured) is a standout: Gosling’s, Velvet Falernum, ginger, lime, orange bitters and a gloop of molasses in a tiki mug garnished with candied orange wheels and honeycomb. Anointed by the juice of grilled Sicilian lemons, a mezcal and Cherry Marnier martini is a quasi-religious experience and my chum's choices are no less revelatory at around £9. Top tapas and perky tortillas, bussed in from upstairs, are unimpeachable. Not so, another idea that comes in a stoppered vintage lemonade bottle. Grass Arena (after the John Healy novel about alcoholism) mixes whisky, Special Brew and Buckfast tonic wine as drunk by brain-damaged Glasgow NEDs frae Drumchapel. This liquid unholy trinity aside, Communion could yet convert me to the Camberwell credo.
Church Street Hotel 29 - 33 Camberwell Church Street SE5 8TR 7703 5984  http://www.communionbar.com/contact/

Peckham Pelican, Peckham

When I used to spend time in San Diego (bored rigid by its plastic people and sunshiny superficiality), my idea of a fun day out was to slum it over the border in  Tijuana. Tequila, tacos and more soul than glossy California could shake a stick at: me gusto! BUT... I would not want to live there. I feel much the same way about Peckham, aka the Dalston of the Sarf. I love its exotic food stalls; rudeboy fashions; "Praise the Lordy" old West Indian dames in their mad mother of the bride hats and Sunday best floral prints; not to mention Frank's rooftop Campari bar, Peckham Springs art gallery (ahem, and bar), and those fascinating lurid beauty parlours wherein, there's so much acrylic weave going down, one carelessly misplaced Marlboro and the whole damn neighbourhood will become an inferno. On my latest awayday, I discover a new bar. All squat party decor, council refuse tip-dodging 1960s furniture, and DIY art - a surrealist spinning wheel after Marcel Duchamp, that's virtually identical to the original. Set in a concrete wing of a peeling Art Deco building, the ultra lo-fi Peckham Pelican is set to take off; located, as it is, away from the main ragga drag, towards arty Camberwell College. From a short list of cocktails, I ask for a bloody Mary. The manager smiles, ‘We’re out of Worcester sauce but I’ll cycle down to Tesco and find some.” £20 million pads or not, don't expect that level of service in Chelsea. While Bradley Wiggins sets off on Le Tour de SE15, his sweet female charges (so green, I wonder if their parents realise they are not upstairs in their bedrooms drooling over camp Justine Bieber posters) set about pizza making. My 3-toppings-for-8-quid special isn't particularly special, but as it's edible and made with love and isn't from Jamie's Italian; I'm happy as Larry - whoever Larry was. ( Grayson? Olivier? The Lamb?) To smoove 70s soul, I pore over a fascinating pile of ancient top shelf magazines found among the random junk dotted around the joint. Take Parade. Price, one shilling. Sample article: "Don't believe the current health scares. If  you ONLY smoke 25 cigarettes a day, your only worry should be the expense.' Life in 1964 was so simple. I could happily stay in my Peckham time warp forever.
92 Peckham Road SE15 5PY 7701 0225  https://www.facebook.com/thepeckhampelican?fref=ts

Stormbird, Camberwell

Ousting the lost-its-Funky Munky, this rare bird is going down a storm with Camberwell hip hop lovers. That’s hip hop as in fashionable craft beers rather than as in blasted out of a nicked stereo in low rider wheels with blacked out windows, what to drive in a 'hood where a second-hand Saab will kill your cred...ston' dead. The spruced-up taphouse (now owned by the same folk as The Hermit’s Cave opposite) lacks signage: look for the Brooklyn Brewery neon through fold-back windows- the sign, a sign of good things within. A palisade of chrome spouts to shout about offers quality pints such as Brodie’s Citra, Ruination Old Foghorn, Redemption Urban Dusk (£3.20) and Deuchar’s IPA. Less familiar, are Odell’s Cut-throat Porter and Yeti Imperial Stout (available in 1/3 pint trial measures). Continentals include Schneider Weisse, Liefmans and ‘Kwak’ - as Jonathon Ross might pronounce ‘crack’, and every bit as addictive and popular down the road in Peckham I'm told. Also of interest, is a selection of perry and cider that includes presses from Symonds of Herefordshire.  One happy punter was moved to exclaim ‘the selection is mental good’. I would not disagree. The range is staggering.  So will you be, if you fire into Stormbird's fine whiskeys and wine from £12. 

25 Camberwell Church Street SE5 7708 4460 

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