Temaki, Brixton

One of the strange things about living in a country like the UK, somewhere that only in recent decades that has really found its feet when it comes to eating out and food generally, is that an ersatz introduction to a particular cuisine, via, say a high-street chain or supermarket reproduction, can quite unfairly cloud your opinion of an entire food culture for a good chunk of your life. For many of us growing up, Pizza Express was a pizza, and if you didn't like Pizza Express, you didn't like pizza. Sweet & sour pork balls was Chinese food, lamb vindaloo and poppadums was Indian, and a steakhouse served watery grey slabs of mystery meat with frozen chips and that was that.

The first time I tried a real, Neopolitan style pizza - at Santa Maria in Ealing I think it was - I was struck by the realisation that it wasn't actually pizza I didn't like, it was the cardboard-flavoured water biscuits covered in commodity slop they served at Pizza Express. Silk Road in Camberwell was lesson 101 in the infinite variety and invention of Chinese food, a journey that continues to this day, the idea that a country of a billion people and thousands of distinct cooking traditions could be accurately represented by a portion of frozen orange chicken and prawn crackers being increasingly farcical. And Tayyabs for Indian/Pakistani, and Hawksmoor for steak. See how far we've all come.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently wrong with a Set Meal A for Two or even Pizza Express if you're really desperate, but when a sizeable percentage of the British population grows up associating these places with Chinese food and Pizza then the task of convincing people it's worthwhile seeking out the real deal becomes increasingly difficult. I know a lot of people who say they don't like sushi, but I also know they will have only ever picked it off the shelves, cold and faded, at Waitrose or off the conveyor belt at Yo! Sushi at Gatwick North, and I wonder what their reaction would be to an omakase involving fluffy body-temperature rice and healthy slabs of marbled otoro.

So, step forward Temaki. If you think sushi isn't for you, or that the good stuff needs to be prohibitively expensive, this friendly yet determinedly cool space in Brixton Market is about to change all that. Not only is this serious, authentic Japanese food, borne of traditional skills (the chef spent a year in Japan) and making the most of the best British ingredients, but you're also treated to the theatre of your dinner being lovingly prepared to order, omakase-style, right in front of you, the kind of experience that you may expect to a hell of a lot more for elsewhere.

The menu is short, in that style of Japanese ultra-specialisation that London could really do with seeing a lot more of, and if there's a single damn thing on it you don't want to eat well, you're a stronger person than me. We basically tried everything, starting with a plate of monkfish kara age, golden-brown nibbles of meaty fish served with a ponzu-spiked mayo studded with fish roe.

Yellowtail sashimi came in another ponzu dressing, this time sharp and gently sweet, and with a couple of bits of chilli to add a bit of heat. Also on the plate were a citrussy nasturium leaves; Temaki use local ingredients whenever they think they're better than the alternative, to often impressive effect.

Take these peas, for example. Temaki have rightly decided that fresh local summer peas are a far more enticing prospect than frozen edamame shipped halfway across the world, and so, coated in salt and buckwheat, they have turned them into an English-Japanese fusion snack. You draw the peas out of the pods with your teeth while stripping the salty coating from the outside - innovative and dangerously addictive.

Salmon tataki had a good dark, firm crust and the house pickled onion cut through the fat beneath that skin beautifully.

House pickles included carrot, daikon and turnip, all a good balance of sweet & sour and loosened with sesame oil.

And then with the small plates and snacks out of the way, we were on to the main events. I'd had temaki before in the same way I'd had pizza before that meal at Santa Maria, insofar as not really. The cold, lifeless little cones of dry grains and sad fish available from your local supermarket bore absolutely no comparison to these things, prepared lovingly by hand with warm rice and the finest seafood, which were so gloriously easy to eat I'm surprised I'm not there still, endlessly reordering between mouthfuls of sake. This is akami tuna with nikiri soy, nikiri being that kind of glossy reduced sweet soy that sushi chefs often "paint" onto nigiri before serving, and it's this particular style of temaki that inspired head chef Shaulan Steenson to go down the temaki route after a life-changing experience in Japan. I find quite a few experiences in Japan tend to be life-changing.

Otoro (fatty tuna) was also fantastic, another addictively proportioned morsel of warm rice and fish, with some spring onion for crunch. There's almost certainly a lot more going on in these things than I am aware of, certainly there are more ingredients than the menu describes, but part of the joy of eating here is discovering all the clever little dressings and pickles they've added to the different temaki in order to better showcase the main ingredient. About this time, and not pictured here is a Devon (Brixham) crab temaki, which added white soy and egg yolk to the sweet, soft seafood.

Eel is another premium ingredient that Temaki know how to use well. Glazed in a BBQ sauce, and wrapped up with cucumber, it was another absolutely superb thing, each of the couple of mouthfuls it took to demolish it balancing honeyed seafood, the crunch of veg and soft rice.

As for a final bill, I'm afraid we didn't see one, as somewhere along the way my booking enquiry was intercepted by the owners and they had offered all of the above on the house. Thanks very much to them. But although food like this shouldn't ever be cheap, I think six expertly-crafted temaki with top-quality rice and ingredients like otoro, crab and eel for £30 is something approaching a bargain. Think of it as a kind of temaki tasting menu. And as for the generous mound of fried monkfish pieces (£7), the lovely crusty salmon tataki (£7) and so on, well, you'll only end up with a big bill because it's all so addictively brilliant, not because it's overpriced. This is, by anyone's standards, good value.

Look, I realise that in my worryingly obsessive foodie way I tend to get excited about anywhere doing something new (or at least new in London) because, well, new is exciting, especially for jaded old bloggers like me. Perhaps in a few years when there's a temaki bar on every street corner I'll look back on this review and wonder how I was so easily impressed, but something tells me quality like this will age well. And whether or not this is the start of some new hand roll trend or a one-off, the fact is it's here now and it's great, and so you should make the absolute most of it because if the last couple of years have taught us anything, it's that you'd better take these opportunities as often as you can. So what on earth are you waiting for?

9/10

I was quite prepared to pay for my dinner but the owners would have none of it, so I didn't see a bill. I think it would have come to about £50/head if we were paying.

Chishuru, Brixton

A car park in Peckham. A concrete forecourt in Old Street. The back of a Piaggio Ape 3 wheeler van on Berwick Street. Some of our most beloved restaurants and food heroes made their first tentative steps to fame and fortune from some of the most unlikely corners of the capital, and in the most unlikely ways. It's almost impossible of course to know which startups and street stalls will eventually go big (or even global - RIP Meatliquor Singapore) but it seems London is good at nurturing food talent, and Londoners are good at spotting it - if you're good at what you do, there's a good chance you'll do well.

So there's a chance - an increasingly vanishing chance, but a chance nontheless - that Adejoké "Joké" Bakare's stunning modern West African food, served in her little corner of Brixton's Market Row, without pretention or fanfare, will not get the attention it deserves. But if I know London like I think I do, a city of impeccable taste and experiment still, despite everything that's been thrown at it recently, then you'll be hearing a lot about Chishuru over the coming weeks and months. And here's why...

This is "Ekuru", the first of countless reasons to visit Chishuru. A kind of vegetable mousse made by steaming certain kinds of peas - black-eyed peas amongst them our waitress said although she appeared almost as mystified by the dish as we were - it seemed impossible that it didn't contain any egg, as the texture was so firm yet light, and yet no, we were assured that it was entirely vegan. Topped with a pumpkin seed pesto, it also came alongside a dollop of the coyly named "Scotch Bonnet Sauce", a mixture so beguiling and complex with its battle of chilli and citrus that we fought over the very last drop of it.

Cassava fritters were crisp and greaseless, more than worth the effort by themselves. But they came with an extraordinary coconut and lime chutney which turned it into something else entirely, the match of root vegetable and coconut suddenly feeling like the most natural thing in the world.

Chicken "sweetbreads" were various bits of offal, a mixture of soft and crunchy and fatty but all grilled precisely so and topped with another masterclass in chilli/citrus saucing. All through the meal at Chishuru were little surprising flavour notes here and there - an unusual herb perhaps, or a texture - but there was nothing deliberately weird, nothing so crass as a texture or taste introduced just to shock. It was all, if not the definition of comfort food by most measures, definitely comforting food. Refined, and easily enjoyable.

Goat "ayamase" had shades of a top Malaysian rendang, with huge chunks of meltingly soft goat meat, slow-cooked into a rich spicy green pepper sauce. On its own it was the kind of thing you could eat bowl after bowl of and not get bored, but with the "Attasi" rice (made with various types of beans, and topped with colourful pickled peppers) to add a bit of starch it went down even easier.

Bavette suya was the last of the mains, pink strips of genuinely good beef (tender, but with a nice chew) dressed with a myriad of dried herbs that managed to showcase the protein without being the least bit either bland, or overseasoned. The beef was so impressive, in fact, we asked where they'd got it from, expecting to be told some artisan grass-fed herd out in the West Country, but apparently it's just from one of the butchers on Electric Avenue. Which as well as making a nice bit of symbiosis with local businesses, just goes to show you don't need blindingly expensive raw ingredients if you have a bit of skill with the seasoning.

Other sides included glazed plantain - nice, but as the chicken sweetbreads came with plantain as well we were a little plaintained-out, and a green leaf salad which I can imagine some people wanting around to counteract the densely meaty other dishes but which I couldn't really find much of a call for. Next time I think I'll just have another bowl of the Ayamase.

We'd pretty much made up our minds that Chishuru was one of the most exciting new restaurants in London as soon as the Ekuru arrived; everything that came after that was just a case of having our decision confirmed. Dishes of warmth and personality, matched equally by their skill and invention, by a singularly impressive young talent, well situations like this do not come along very often. It's just sheer bad luck that Bakare's career is beginning in the middle of a global pandemic, but I've every confidence that it will outlast it easily and go on to thrive. For £50 a head (we had a bottle of the Mestizaje which was the most expensive red on the list, but it was lovely and comes highly recommended) you too can have a small part in that journey, and in a few years time, you can say, you were there when it all started. One to most definitely watch.

9/10

Thunderbird, Brixton

Although the lineup is constantly changing, there's always more than one reason to visit Brixton's Market Row. Salon has been South London's favourite brunch spot for a number of years now, the original Franco Manca is still the best (and most popular), and if Nanban isn't the absolute best way to do fusion Japanese cooking then I don't know what is. Try their goat ramen, it'll change your life.

Latest to join this hallowed company is Thunderbird, following the solid London tradition of graduating from streetfood stars to this, their first bricks-and-mortar restaurant. I was always likely to visit, as the search for buffalo wings is a kind of mini obsession of mine, but an invite from a PR company gave me the nudge I needed and so one cold February evening I found myself in this brightly coloured and rather noisy space, blinking incredulously at the idea of "Salted caramel chicken wings".

But more on those later. Firstly let's talk about the Thunderbird Buffalo wings, or rather "Chipuffalo" as they call them as the sauce somewhat non-traditionally involves chipotle. The good news is that they're doing almost everything right in this regard. The sauce is spicy and buttery, and despite the fact I didn't detect much in the way of chipotle this is probably for the best. The blue cheese "dip" was in fact not the usual thin ranch dressing but instead a solid paste, seemingly little other than pure blue cheese - again, hardly traditional but I had no complaints. But the real star was the chicken itself, delightfully crunchy on the outside and without a hint of dryness or overcooking inside, they were about as good as you could possibly want - the natural result, I'm sure, of a great deal of experimentation and tweaking of recipe and method over quite a bit of time.

The only element of the order I didn't much enjoy was the pickled celery. There's something about the way sticks of celery go when pickled that makes them rather rubbery and difficult to eat, which is why you usually find them cut into small slices. Anyway, why bother pickling it at all? A stick of fresh celery would make much more sense. Still, a minor quibble overall, and not enough to stop Thunderbird's "Chipuffalo" easily competing with some of the best in town (if you get a chance, check out Sticky Wings, Chick'n'Sours and Orange Buffalo).

I also enjoyed the "Thunderbun", which in contrast to the mile-high superburgers that seem to be the norm these days, was instead the perfect height for eating, a compact little thing with a good chicken-sauce ratio and a lovely soft bun (by Millers) in the potato roll style.

Chips were fine. It goes without saying that they pale in comparison to places like Chick'n'Sours, who cook theirs in beef dripping, but they still did a decent enough job, dusted with cajun spicing and dressed in "Awesome Sauce" (mayo-based, same as used in the bun).

Salted Caramel Chicken Wings, were, as you might be forgiven to expect, horrid. Part of me admires, in a twisted way, that this car-crash of an idea got all the way from the drawing block to the printed menu without anyone saying "what the hell are you thinking" - in a largely identikit trend-chasing world we could do with a few more completely batshit ideas to spice things up a bit. But yeah, full marks for originality, zero marks for execution. Sweet and weird and completely wrong.

But look, there's a slim chance - a very slim chance, but still a chance - that salted caramel chicken wings are to somebody's taste out there, and anyway it's not like anyone's forcing you to order them. And with the Buffalo - sorry, Chipuffalo - wings and the Thunderbun there's still plenty else to enjoy, so much so that a couple of weeks later I snuck back in on my own dollar to check that they were as good as the first time. And they were. So welcome to Brixton, Thunderbird - it looks like you'll fit right in. Salted caramel wings and all.

8/10

My first visit to Thunderbird was on the house, then I paid myself for a return trip.

Duck Duck Goose, Brixton

Beware of irony. That's my advice for restaurateurs. Your white-hot idea for a 70s dinner party popup with Babycham to start, or searing "take" on corned beef hash and apple crumble school dinners may have you and your friends splitting their sides, but that joke will never translate to the plate. Food is never funny - surprising and delightful, at its best, yes - but never funny. The only fun anyone's ever going to get from "funny" food is reading about the whole car crash afterwards. And for that, I'll point you towards Marina O'Loughlin's evisceration of Gregg Wallace's catastrophic nostalgia-fest Gregg's Table (RIP), where it turned out that - shockingly - paying restaurant prices for boiled beef and carrots or "canned" fruit salad with Carnation is rather more hilarious in concept than in reality. Beware of irony.

Duck Duck Goose just about avoids the worst pitfalls of the "ironic restaurant" thanks to much of the menu being at least somewhat edible, but the worrying spectre of someone's smirking "take" on high street Cantonese hangs over much of proceedings. I worry, for example, about a dish described as "prawn toast revisited". If I was going to give the DDG guys the benefit of the doubt, I'd say they had simply taken a staple of deep-fried takeaway starters and attempted to upgrade it with proper fresh seafood and cheffy presentation. Fair enough. But then why do I get the impression the dish is more parody than tribute - greasy and thick, with a clumsy tamarind and mayonnaise dressing and mound of annoying unseasoned frisée lettuce dumped on top? I'd almost prefer the time-honoured original.

A trio of condiments further confused matters. A homemade (presumably) "take" (there's that word again) on plum sauce was fine - sweet with a certain tartness - yet hardly much of an improvement over anything out of a bottle. Pickles were little more than cubes of mystery veg in chilli-spiked syrup - again slightly too sweet for my tastes. And miso mustard was fine, but, well, not very Chinese.

All of which would have been fine if the main event - the Duck Duck (no Goose, which is Saturdays only) - had enough to recommend it. Unfortunately (for DDG), good Cantonese roast duck is not a rarity in London, and so a good number of people sitting down to this under-rendered pile of Donald, with its grey flesh and chewy skin, will be thinking about the superlative examples at places such as Gold Mine in Bayswater, where furthermore the bill (no pun intended) will be half the price. Cubes of pork belly alternated between "dry" and "OK", as did char siu, and soaked in the sweet soy dressing it was all faintly enjoyable, but the disparity between the ungainly technique and presentation and the eye-watering price point (£31) was jarring.

As if that wasn't enough, eating someone's ironic idea of Chinese food at Duck Duck Goose also involves suffering under some of the most excruciatingly affected "service" I've ever encountered. Our waiter had the weirdest manner, cracking strange self-conscious jokes with every dish brought, offering dreadful puns and grinning through awkward buffoonery between times, that it became something approaching mild torture. We ended up dreading every encounter, shrinking further into our chairs as yet another embarrassing-uncle-at-a-wedding witticism was offered, so much that the evening ended up an exercise in avoiding any interaction at all. Perhaps we would have stayed for dessert if the idea of ordering it wasn't so terrifying. But then again, perhaps not.

Because even without the gurning service, I don't think I would ever be in danger of going back to Duck Duck Goose. It's not that any of the food was terrible, it's just that it doesn't seem to answer any questions that Londoners could conceivably be asking. If you want duck done well on a budget, there's Gold Mine or Four Seasons or Royal China or a number of other spots in town. If you want Chinese-flavoured street food then get yourself to Kerb and try Sheng High or one of the little noodle stalls in Chinatown. If you do really want to pay over the odds for reimagined, knowing "takes" on traditional Cantonese fare then... well, then there's Duck Duck Goose. But I can't for the life of me imagine why you would.

5/10

Nanban, Brixton

It seems like a lifetime ago now, but in 2011 I spent two mad, fun-filled weeks in Japan. I loved every minute of the time I spent in this most beautiful and endlessly hospitable of countries, which I'm sure will surprise nobody who's ever been there themselves. And it will also come as no surprise that I ate many wonderful things there too, from delicate tempura to okonomiyaki, from rich ramen to takoyaki, multi-course Zen Buddhist menus and seafood banquets hung above mountain streams, it was the trip of a lifetime.

Of course, there was the odd challenge as well. The Japanese seem very fond of savoury jellies, which tended to spring up unnanounced in certain more high-end kaiseki menus, often hidden under innocuous-looking vegetables for extra shock factor. I don't dislike savoury jellies per se, it's just I know where I stand with a bit of aspic in a pork pie. The strange, murky lumps of snot wrapped in cabbage given to me in a restaurant in Kyoto, not so much. And if I never again have to eat cod's sperm, or raw squid guts, or bitter deep-fried river fish tasting of soil and bones, it will still be too soon. I skipped into Japan as a fearless food adventurer. I left, chastened and discombobulated, craving anything so familiar as a burger and chips. It's no wonder Noma did so well over there.

Tim Anderson is a man who understands all the things that makes Japanese food so dynamic and rewarding, but crucially also how to harness the best features of the cuisine and repackage it for a London audience. That's not to say the food in Nanban is a tame or watered-down version of Japanese food, such as you might find in a ready-meal or some high-street friendly chain; it's far more complex than that. It's regional Japanese cuisine (in this case from the south of the country, where Anderson has spent most of his time) melded intelligently with modern London, producing a result at once completely unique and - more importantly - great to eat.

Take for example this dish, "Electric Eel", smoked eel with sansho pepper, something called "prickly oil", apple, cucumber and daikon. Smoked eel is one of those ingredients that will be familiar to the Japanese but also many diners of London restaurants - I've had it a the Dairy as well as the Ledbury in the last year at least. With it is sansho pepper, a punchy spice from Japan's Kochi Prefecture, providing the 'electricity' of tongue-tingling heat but also a cute nod to Brixton's Electric Avenue, just round the corner. And on top of all this clever Japanese-Brixton fusion is the fact that it tastes fantastic, from the soft smoky eel to the sharp/sweet cucumber and the texture of fried noodles on top. It's way more than a nifty idea.

Also this, "Curry Goat Tsukumen", a deep bowl of richly meaty ramen (including half a salty, gooey onsen egg), and a separate plate of dipping noodles. There's nothing not to love here, from the complex curry notes of the broth to the bouncy yellow egg noodles to dip in it. Also of note were two sticks of Scotch Bonnet-infused bamboo shoots, eye-wateringly hot and addictively moreish. Just as with the eel dish, the fusion of Japan and Carribbean South London produced a genuinely exciting and unique result. Oh and that plate of spaghetti towards the back? "Mentaiko" pasta, similar to bottarga (fish roe), salty and satisfying with a poached egg on top ready to dispatch a dose of runny yolk once broken with chopsticks. Another work of breathless invention.

There's even a burger, a big heaving juicy thing with gochujang sauce, pork belly and tea egg mayo - so far so Asian - but quite rightly served with plasticky American cheese, who as anyone who knows burgers will tell you is still the best way of doing things. If it ain't broke.

I'll talk about one more thing - "horumon yaki", briefly described as pig tripe in miso but involving a good half dozen other bits that I'd only get wrong if I tried to explain in full. All you need to know is that this startling side dish was another impressive display of Anderson's skill, matching nose-to-tail butchery with a fearless miscellany of pickle, colour and crunch.

Just as much thought has gone into the drinks list, which also cleverly continues the fusion theme. Anderson has collaborated with various local breweries to produce delights such as the 'Brew By Numbers 01/14', a Saison with matcha, honey and lemon, and the lovely 'Pressure Drop' wheat IPA flavoured with yuzu and grapefruit. The care and thought that has gone into everything at Nanban is obvious.

As a restaurant blogger I'm perhaps more inclined towards the new and innovative than the tried and tested, and to that end I shouldn't be too surprised that reviews of Nanban from other corners haven't been wholly positive. Depending on your state of mind I suppose the relentless invention can easily be interpreted as wacky-for-the-sake-of-it gimmickry, and with the chilli levels, seasoning and flavours so often dialled up to 11, you're going to lose some people along the way.

But I am convinced that there is something legitimately new and exciting happening at Nanban. This is food the like of which London has not seen before, Japanese fused with Brixton 2016 in a way few others would have the fearlessness and creativity to successfully pull off. And more than that, and more to the point, it's just a great place to go and have your dinner, and for not very much money (our bill was about £30 a head). For fans of Anderson (myself included) who have followed his popups and collaborations across town for many years, Nanban has been a long time coming. But boy, was it worth the wait.

9/10

Salon, Brixton Market

Objectively, Salon - ostensibly a showcase restaurant for the products sold at the Cannon & Cannon deli - are a very solid little operation serving decent British (or largely British) food in an airy room above Brixton Market and are charging very little money for it. It's possibly unfortunate for them that I made my second trip to Broadway Market and to Sabel this Sunday just gone, who are doing this thing that much better (in fact probably better than anyone else), but if you find yourself near Electric Avenue with £15 burning a hole in your pocket you can certainly do much worse.

N'duja croquettes were an attractive golden brown, had a nice crunch and came perched on blobs of ketchup and surrounded by leaves of chicory. I'd have liked a bit more of a kick from the n'duja, and there was something about the ketchup that felt a bit... low-rent, but I was happy enough to eat them. Which I guess is the point.

Welsh Rarebit was a bit wrong, though - a thick, disconcertingly brown gunk laid on brown bread, grilled too timidly to have any of that nice golden crust you get on a good bit of rarebit (see: St John, Farringdon). Pickled walnuts were a nice touch, but there's only so much bitterly beer-y, salty mixture the consistency of snot you can eat before feeling a bit queasy. We didn't finish it.

Dexter beef - they didn't specify the cut but I'm guessing onglet - had plenty of flavour and was cooked well if you ignore the fact it didn't have a char. It's probably a bit mean criticising a restaurant like this for not having a charcoal grill, as often it's a licensing/extraction issue and out of their hands, but there has never been a bit of beef in the history of the world that isn't better cooked over coals. Still, not bad.

Suffolk chorizo with Jersey Royals was nice too, and oddly enough suffered from the opposite problem as the beef as there was way too much of it all - mainly potato. The chorizo had plenty of punch and bite, and the potatoes were little bouncy balls of flavour, but my friend pointed out that leaving those furry leaves on the radishes has way more benefit to visual aesthetics than taste, and there was quite a bit of salty butter swimming about underneath it all.

Still, all said and done, it was a hearty old lunch for £15 a head and we'd had a nice time. It's great fun, too, looking out over the market while you eat, where, as anyone who's ever been to Brixton Market will know, entertainment in various forms is never in short supply. A marvellously gooey rye, baked fresh that morning, was way better than you usually get as a house bread and, slathered in salty butter, made a fantastic appetiser. So Salon are doing enough right that the odd misstep doesn't matter so much. On the days I don't fancy trekking over to Broadway Market, I will be back.

7/10