Clapham area guide

This café, just over the road from Clapham Common tube, is one of the new wave of Antipodean-style cafés that make much of their brunch menu (served  here until 3pm), and their coffee - all the equipment and beans here are tip-top. The two-floor interior’s fashionably rough and ready, and there’s a yard at the back with outside seating ­– not catching on the sun on our midday visit, but this didn’t deter hardier diners.  The dishes are attractively presented with smears of colour and pretty leaf garnishes and sprouts, but at heart, this is simple food based around baking, hot grilled sandwiches and fry-ups. The eggs were perfectly poached, the fried bits perfectly fried. And the flavours worked, even odd combos such as beetroot, corn fritters and halloumi, and an extra of smashed avocado. On both of our visits months apart, the service was amateurish. Waits were long, orders forgotten, coffee clumsily made, and – on one visit - the meal bill given as a verbal total, rather than itemised so that it could be checked. Be warned too that with add-on prices for many ‘extras’, the bill can come to more than you might expect.

The picket fence goes up by 6pm, partioning off a little patch of ground next to Clapham Common’s tube station. The folding tables then fill up in minutes with glass-clinking sybarites, attracting the stares of zipped-up commuters. A former public toilet, integral to the Tube station but derelict for years, has reopened as a wine bar, and transformed its tiny outside space into a new drinking terrace. The ‘WC’ sign on the Tube station building now refers to Wine & Charcuterie, the winning bid out of 450 applicants to redevelop this unusual subterranean and above ground space. The bar is the latest instalment of the Clapham Old Town Regeneration Project, £2.8 million’s worth of wider pavements, traffic calming and turning old lavs into venues where you’re encouraged to swirl and sniff (as opposed to being cautioned or charged for doing so). Down the wide stairs it still looks and feels like a Victorian convenience, albeit a sanitised one. The wall tiles and floor mosaics are still there, the cubicle doors have been laid flat and turned into tables within secluded and low-lit booths. Other fixtures and fittings are also reclaimed Victoriana, much of it from a nearby school. It’s cosy and appealing.A score of wines are sold, with plenty of choice in the £7 to £10 per glass range: no bargain, but also not taking the piss. The styles are diverse, from a dry German Riesling to a Bulgarian Merlot. Service is enthusiastic and engaging. Cheese platters start at £13, charcuterie plates

The picket fence goes up by 6pm, partioning off a little patch of ground next to Clapham Common’s tube station. The folding tables then fill up in minutes with glass-clinking sybarites, attracting the stares of zipped-up commuters. A former public toilet, integral to the Tube station but derelict for years, has reopened as a wine bar, and transformed its tiny outside space into a new drinking terrace. The ‘WC’ sign on the Tube station building now refers to Wine & Charcuterie, the winning bid out of 450 applicants to redevelop this unusual subterranean and above ground space. 

In a quiet residential street not far from Clapham Common, Bobbin is an appealing neighbourhood gastropub. It has a changing rota of proper ales (perhaps St Austell Tribute or something from Sambrooks), good wines by the glass, a cosy front room, and an airy conservatory at the rear. The menu’s the main focus, with typical gastropub dishes done well. Our ribeye steak (£17.50) was well-hung, tender and grilled correctly rare as requested; the chips were of the chunky, skin-on type, and the salsa verde added kick.

It’s a joy to find a proper neighbourhood pub that serves a brilliant range of beers from small producers. Hand-crafted cask ales, guest kegs, and of course an array of exotic bottles. Not that you’d need recourse to the fridge when there are around 30 beers on tap, ranging from an easy-drinking house pale ale, through aromatic weiss beer, to sour, Belgian-style gueuze, all sold by the half or pint. This pub is beer-spotters’ heaven, the brews carefully curated by enthusiastic staff who treat the establishment as if it’s their own, despite it being the fourth in a small London chain (there’s a fifth in Brighton too).

Craft brews, draft ales and real ciders, plus pop-up kitchen residencies by street food vans. This is the sort of pub we’d like to see in every neighbourhood.

High summer on Clapham Common, and everyone and everything is out – the sun, the bare legs, the six-packs (both kinds). But when the bevvies are finished it’s time to head to the pub. Every year Clapham’s bars face onslaughts as sunburned and inebriated groups descend on them like Visigoths on Rome. This was a new experience for No 32, which opened days before the hottest weekend of the year so far. Yet the staff coped well, smiling and keeping pace with the orders in a packed bar.

Close to Clapham Common, next to the Picturehouse and set slightly back from the chavalcade of chain bars on the High Street, is a new vinyl-clad venue on Venn Street (hence the name). The site that formerly housed Gilt has been remodelled into a rock and roll drinker bedecked in bare brick with splashes of neon, its walls adorned with retro album covers, flyers, music memorabilia and other bits of pop paraphernalia.

Walking into Bodean’s is an invitation to have a good time. Decked out with Americana – from beer trays and antler lamps on the walls, to flatscreen TVs showing baseball or the NFL – the Clapham branch of this mini-chain has gone the whole hog on its rib-shack theme, with country and western music and chummy staff to boot. Much of the restaurant consists of leather booths, encouraging a relaxed, family-style approach to dining.