Lauren O'Neill

Camberwell is brilliant because it’s loads of things at once. It captures all the stuff that makes south-east London my favourite part of the city – the young-at-heart vibe, the independent spirit, the multiculturalism – and crams it all into a green, community-oriented little patch. One of the big draws of the place, of course, is the food. Over the years, Camberwell Church Street has become the stuff of legend, and now, it’s easily one of the heaviest-hitting roads in the capital for hungry Londoners. This one stretch boasts the new iteration of legendary Xinjiang restaurant Silk Road and the best Lebanese falafel wraps in the area at Falafel and Shawarma, as well as a fine gastropub in the form of The Camberwell Arms, plus unbeatable Kurdish cuisine at Nandine. That’s before you even get up the road to the geniuses at Toad Bakery, whose city-best bread and viennoiserie bring out the locals as well as pastry-hungry pilgrims in their swathes on Fridays and Saturdays.  We’d always recommend a stop at Toad to start off a day in Camberwell before pootling across to South London Gallery (next door to Camberwell College of Art, which nurtures the next generation of design talent), to chin stroke around the latest. Then, perhaps, a negroni across the road at the Peckham Pelican and a browse around the area’s indie shops, followed by The Bear for a dance, courtesy of their vinyl-first selectors. Dinner options along the way are, obviously, many, as are cosy pubs in which to sink a