Grace and Flavour: Brixton Village

The mere existence of Brixton Village - fledgling foodie mecca, home to Honest Burger, Mama Lan, KaoSaon, Elephant and many more - illustrates succinctly why for me London is as moreish as a Class A drug. Only in London is it feasible to be so distracted food-wise, booze-wise by a hundred other new shiny things that you can blank out a postcode entirely. I was around Brixton a lot in the late 1990s: The Dog Star, The Fridge, The Windmill, lots of silly afterparties at The Academy; but I don't recall a foodstuff ever passing my lips.

'You need to go Brixton Village,' I've been told this year, on about five separate occasions, 'It's the former Granville Arcade on Coldharbour Lane. Go to Franca Manca Pizza. Go to Casa Sibilla,' Brixton Village, I've since seen for myself, is best visited with an empty stomach, an eagle eye for a vacant seat and your own corkscrew. The restaurants are tiny, homespun, food made-with-love type of places and bookings are tricky. We wanted Thai tempura and larb gai at Kao Saon but were far too slow to get bumspace and settled for Mama Lan's - ran by Ning Ma, where we sat amongst her extended family as they rolled Beijing dill and spiced tofu dumplings and served seaweed and sesame salad in a kitchen two metres from our noses. Over the alley at Agile Rabbit bar a soul singer blasted out a live PA while Honest Burger's clientele spilled out into the warren of streets clutching brioche buns and ginger-pig beef patties, with and rosemary salt chips. Post dumplings, we got caffeine pick-me-ups at Federation Coffee, where they serve bolshy Nude Espressos.

This is not neat, bland regeneration as cynics are bound to be reading this and grumbling; some local characters may be powered by something more feisty than coffee, the bins are a touch ripe and toilets scarce. Brixton Village is lively, rewarding but still very wonky. We drank too many Cuban rums in Senzala @Brickbox and ate crepes oozing with chocolate and coconut. A regular gave me a lewd suggestion of how we might work the calories off my hips. Once I'd finished tossing my hair about giggling I remembered I should probably be offended.