Pedler, Peckham Rye
Location: 58 Peckham Rye, Peckham, London SE15 4JR
Website: https://www.pedlerpeckhamrye.com
Pedler is a small restaurant located in the home of Rodney and Del-boy, Peckham. Peckham has changed a lot since the fictional Trotters Independent Traders were plying their wares around the locality, there has been an explosion of amazing restaurants, trendy bars and galleries which make Peckham a fantastic place to spend some time. Pedler is one such place serving up some amazing international style tapas/small plates.
The food is incredible, we visited on a Tuesday when they do “Tapas Tuesday”, with small tapas dishes at £3 a pop. They’re not too substantial but great for a nibble while you are browsing the menu. We had boquerones (pickled anchovies), deep fried breadcrumbed olives, pan fried padron peppers and tomato bread, all very delicious. We then moved onto the larger plates and we were not disappointed. We had the griddled courgette with feta and sunflower seeds, and the spicy sauce really complemented the freshness of the aubergine and the creaminess of the feta. Next came the cured salmon with an orange salad, again, beautifully balanced flavours with some quality velvety salmon. Next came the pig shank stew, an epic portion of melt in your mouth pork served with a tasty apricot stuffing. At this points the buttons were straining on my shirt but we had ordered another two dishes so we had to soldier on, it’s unusual to get such large portions at a small plate joint but I’m not complaining. The frizzle chicken was essentially fried chicken which I felt was a nod to heritage of the local area, it was served with polenta and something called attitude sauce. While the attitude sauce was very flavoursome, it wasn’t spicy as I was expecting so I don’t think it had that much attitude! Delicious nonetheless. We finished with the seared Hereford beef hangar steak, the steak was ok, not amazing but the cauliflower on the side absolutely blew me away! I don’t know what they did to it but it was some of the best cauliflower I have had! My only criticism of the meal was that I felt that most of the meat was under-seasoned, a problem easily remedied by adding some salt myself.
They do a great cocktail menu with drinks costing between £6 - £8, a great price considering a lot of restaurants these days charge £10+. I had the Peckham Rum Punch and a Clover Club, one of my all time favourite cocktails and it was perfectly made. They have a great wine selection too, we had a very tasty Romanian Orange wine and there were many other interesting options to choose from.
The restaurant itself has a very eccentric vibe, there is a giant cows head as well as a pair of antlers on the walls, the lamp shades look like plaster cast vegetables and the crockery looks like it all came from the mix and match bin at the charity shop. The tabletops are marble and the chairs have a battered look and all of it comes together to work really well. There was a great atmosphere even though it was a Tuesday and the place was half empty.
This place is excellent value, we ended up paying about £40 a head including tip which was amazing considering both the quantity and quality of the food on offer. We will definitely be eating at this place again in the future!
