The 20 best things to do in Camberwell

Nestled next to Camberwell School of Art and with Goldsmiths to the east, you’d expect the South London Gallery to know its art onions – and you’d be right. This gallery is fast becoming one of the city’s most important art spaces, programming some of the biggest up-and-coming names around. Exhibitions are free to enter, and span the gallery's two buildings: the capacious original gallery, and the new converted fire station down the road. It’s also a particularly nice place to while away the hours: grab a coffee and a pastry in the café, pick up some matte-paged art tomes in the gift shop, or venture into the secluded garden hidden out back.

Yet another stop on the Camberwell Church Street food odyssey is the heavy-hitting gastropub The Camberwell Arms. You’ll come for the much lauded Sunday roasts – served mostly sharing style, with welcome, sophisticated twists on your usual meat-n-soggy-veg fare – but you’ll stay for menu mainstays like scotch bonnet pork fat on toast and charcuterie done in-house, an always-extensive dessert selection, and an absolute straightener of a martini from the bar.  

The London food scene is so replete with constant newness and fanfare that it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s legit and what’s mere Emperor’s New Clothes-style nonsense. One much-feted Camberwell spot which absolutely stands up to all of the praise, however, is Toad Bakery. Home to the Everything Bagel Croissant (I’m not going to describe it, it’s just as good as it sounds), a brilliant hybrid sourdough tin loaf, and the miso soy sesame cookie of all your saltiest fantasies, there’s very little at Toad that doesn’t do absolute bits. The queue outside this little hole in the wall opposite Camberwell College of Art is long at the weekends – 20 minutes minimum, realistically – but the rewards at the end? My friend, they are great.

There’s very little more pleasing than strolling up and down an airy shop full of gorgeous bits and pieces, with a basket hanging in the crook of your arm and no dinner plans. Gladwell’s is Camberwell’s local spot for such gorgeous bits and pieces, stocking fancy tinned fish, organic fruit and veg, and every variety of posh crisps you could hope for. And if you happen to need a snack as you shop, their selection of sarnies, pastries and coffee will see you right.

Camberwell Church Street is crawling with brilliant places to eat and drink, but only one of them is the source of the massive queue that reliably snakes up the road every lunchtime, and that’s Falafel and Shawarma. While it’s incredibly proficient in ‘doing what it says on the tin’ – that is, breezeblock-sized falafel wraps for about a fiver, and trays piled high with moist chicken shawarma for not much more – it’s the additional touches that mark this takeaway out. Add soft aubergine in sweet tomato sauce to your wrap, chuck on a side of almost fudgy potatoes, and order your chicken as part of a mezze with stuffed vine leaves, fried shards of flatbread and whatever other good stuff happens to be on the counter. Also: always, always get garlic and chilli sauce.

An oasis for the more green-fingered south east Londoner, the Nunhead Gardener is a good go-to for everything you need for your outdoor space, whether that’s a balcony with room for one plant in a really, really good-looking pot, or your own veg patch (there are houseplants too, for those who like to keep their interiors verdant). The selection is great – plants, tools, seeds, whatever you require – and beginners in need of advice should be sure to ask the knowledgeable staff, who’ll always help out with any horticultural woes.

If you’re in the mood for a small-plates-and-bottle-of-wine candlelit date night, there are few places in the area more atmospheric for it than Little Cellars. This cute nook is the baby sibling of Queens Road Peckham’s larger Peckham Cellars, and if you turn up on a Thursday or a Saturday from 5PM, you can get a selection of dishes to share for only £24 per person, making it excellent on a budget too.  

The Xinjiang food at the Camberwell institution Silk Road makes a visit to the area worth it on its own – chunky skewers of meat and fish, great dumplings, an absolute ripper of a sweet but acidic aubergine dish, and of course, steaming bowls of those chewy, hand-pulled noods. And while the restaurant has now moved from its original location, OG heads will be relieved to know that the only thing that has actually changed is that it can serve more people: the mood, value, excellent food and slight chaos of the original remain wholly intact.

A relative newcomer to London’s thriving indie record store offering, genre-fluid Camberwell label-slash-vinyl shop Dash the Henge opened in summer 2022 in the site of the much-missed Rat Records. Alongside stocking a genre-hopping offering of independently-produced vinyl, zines, audio equipment and eye-catching hot pink merch, the space also hosts free live performances every Saturday afternoon, plus an eclectic events programme encompassing everything from political talks to its own Record Store Day music festival South By South East.

While it’s called the Peckham Pelican, this very relaxed bar is actually on the border between Peckham and Camberwell, and it definitely counts as a much-loved Camberwell spot, which reflects the area’s creative hum (this is largely because it’s a typical hangout for the Goldsmiths and Camberwell College of Arts crowd, if you’d like to be reminded of how uncool your clothes are nowadays). Here, cocktails are cheap, pizzas are great for sharing, and there are events from comedy nights to palmistry workshops – plus there’s always art available to buy on the walls.  

South east London in general is an especially green bit of the city, and Ruskin Park, which lies on the edge of Camberwell, is one of its best parks. While it may be relatively small, Ruskin Park makes up for its size in sheer excellent vibes: there’s a bandstand where you might be lucky enough to catch some music, tennis courts for your extremely convincing Federer impression, and community group fitness classes to join in with. Friends lounging on the grass are equally as at home as the sports teams competing at the weekends – young and old – while the varying terrain makes it a fun but challenging part of a running route, if that’s your thing.

Turkish restaurant FM Mangal has been on Camberwell Church Street since 2009 (the same owners previously ran Angel Mangal in north London in the 1990s and 2000s), and it’s a mainstay for a reason. Here, the speciality is sharing, whether that’s hot or cold starters (get the borek), or enormous set menu orders of adana, shish, and cutlets, all accompanied by fresh salads and extra mezze. It’s an old adage that you’re not meant to fill up on bread, however, at FM Mangal, this is nigh on impossible: fresh, fluffy and warm, it would be criminal to relegate this stuff to a side show.

Sure, it may sound like the title of one of the more unhinged ‘Things to Do In London’ TikToks that are always popping up on your FYP, but this is actually a very legit Friday night option if live music is your thing. Every week, the 300-year-old crypt beneath St Giles’ Church plays host to some of the UK’s best improvisational jazz musicians, making it a great option for nights when you fancy a chilled one with a stellar soundtrack. Jazz not your thing? Book in for one of its semi-regular ‘Organoke’ nights’ and belt out some faves to a soundtrack provided by the church’s mighty 170-year-old organ. Majestic.

Chilled enough for slightly gobby friend group summits (to speak from experience), but slinky enough for low-lit dates, Veraison Wines is a cosy, casual wine bar with friendly staff and a non-intimidating atmosphere. The wine list, as you might expect, is absolutely lovely – lots of unusual, natural bottles to choose from in particular – but if you do happen to be in the mood for a negroni, the version here is killer too.

A very recent and welcome addition to Camberwell’s cultural life, the shelves of Lala Books on Grove Lane are highly curated to feature some of the most interesting literature being published right now. Best of all, however, are the varied events that programmers bring to this intimate space – there are discussions with authors led by critics and journalists, as well as live poetry and open mic nights.

A sandwich bar by day, and a slightly fancier sandwich bar by night, Café Mondo is one of the latest additions to Camberwell’s already stacked food landscape. This is a fun, eclectic place that embraces the finger food of dive bars and the technical culinary chops of fine restaurants all at once. At lunchtime, they sling out Insta-friendly but complexly flavoured hoagies and doorstop-style fish finger sandwiches, while at night, it’s more of a sit-down situation, with patty melts smashed fresh on the plancha for your delectation, accompanied by tomatoes on whipped ricotta (get you a restaurant that can do both, etc.). If you’re heading over in the evening, make sure you get yourself properly acquainted with the locale and plump for a Camberwell Handshake: that’s a shot of tequila chased by a pint-sized tinnie of Red Stripe, for the low low price of six quid.

Yet another of Church Street’s fantastic restaurants is Nandine, a Kurdish restaurant where the food is absolutely alive with flavour – whether that’s the lipsmacking freshness of the salads, or the earthy comfort of meat dishes that utilise every part of the animal. It’s hard not to fill up when everything is this good and this affordable, but make sure you leave room for dessert: how does baklava lovingly decorated with rose petals sound?

The Bear is one of those rare pubs that does great food but is also Actually Fun. The kitchen uses seasonal ingredients on its constantly-rotating menu, which has a slight fusion-style bent (dishes like cavatelli pasta with XO sauce, and steak tartare with a soy-cured egg yolk proliferate) while the music selection comes courtesy of vinyl-first DJs from the local area, and there are even open decks on a Wednesday if you’ve got a decent collection of your own.

Once the area’s beloved red-sauce-n-checkered-table-cloths-style Italian restaurant, this ice cream shop has maintained a friendly atmosphere. The selection of flavours is suitably large – classicists can choose a fine, creamy pistachio, though if you’re feeling silly, go for Smarties – and there are classic Italian desserts on offer too: think choc-smothered profiteroles and whacking great slices of tiramisu.

Newly refurbished, this pub on Coldharbour Lane is technically up towards Loughborough Junction, but this location means that it’s sometimes a little less hectic than some of the pubs closer to the Green. Boasting a big range of beers, this is a solid spot with a massive garden for the summer, and big leather booths for curling up during the colder months.