Brixton Cornercopia

Excellent home grown food in a very quaint setting, with a changing menu, a great neighbourhood restaurant.

i came here for sunday brunch yesterday with my boyfriend, parents and pup. i love that brixton village market is dog-​friendly (i’m guessing in most places outside only), and as it’s covered, it’s also weather friendly too. most places have blankets on their seating outside so that you can try to stay as toasty warm as possible.
the market is a little quieter on sundays with most of the traders shut up for business, but the restaurants/​cafes are all open. we settled for brixton cornercopia just as they were opening at 11am, so were lucky to grab a seat with no wait.
the menu is changed daily and is short — and yesterday mainly focused around the pig. i don’t eat pig, but i was happy with the vegetarian choice of mushroom frittata, if you are with fussier vegetarians or eaters the shortness of the menu may put you off.
portions are not huge, but are very reasonable. my mushroom frittata was one of the most beautifully presented dishes i have ever eaten. how is it possible to make a frittata look so good (edible flowers is the answer…). my parents were super happy with their black pudding/​haggis croquette dish and my boyfriend enjoyed his pancake with streaky bacon.
as i mentioned, portions are not huge, but i actually prefer this as it leaves room to enjoy some other goodies from the market.
the small shop of the cornercopia itself is so cute — it has lots of things crammed in there for purchase, and i kind of wanted everything. definitely coming back here to purchase some christmas presents for sure. my mum bought me a bottle of their red pepper chilli ketchup, which had been freshly made that morning. it’s seriously delicious — i highly recommend.
also the lady looking after us was lovely and the chefs who brought our food over were super smiley & friendly. will definitely return, and I definitely recommend :)

One of my favorite meals in London… tapas style plates made with fresh, local ingredients. Dishes are simple and delicious… think golden beet roots with sheep’s cheese and hazelnuts, baked figs with pomegranate seeds, pork rilette with toasted bread and olive oil. Prices are reasonable given the quality of food. Recommended!

I spent a memorable evening at Brixton market and ended it with an even more memorable meal at Cornercopia. The waiter was nice and the food simply delicious. This is the kind of place that reminds you how amazing simple dishes can taste. Think slow roasted tomatoes. Ham & pea pie. Oh, I loved that pie! Warm happiness wrapped in dough.

Be prepared for heaps of attitude — yet decent to pretty good food.
What once was a local place is now a full blown novelty.
Pros — the food is good, local and serves up a nice twist of ingredients and takes. It really feels home made
Cons — you don’t feel welcomed even on the third time eating there unless you conform to the I-don’t-know-what type they seem to like.
I was not impressed with the service and slightly disappointed by the weird looks we received after my friend requested a coke on the first visit. They’re obviously too cool to serve coke, I get it but they could tell us off more politely — after all if you don’t have passion in what you do best not do it at all.
Two stars because I’ve had better.

This place is brilliant. They make wonderful, really home-​made fare, with great ingredients. There is excellent attention to detail without any hint of pretentiousness, and you know that you could make all these dishes yourself if you only had access to the best ingredients and the time to do it. I love this kind of eating — it feels like eating at home would be if one didn’t have to work for a living and were not permanently rushed off one’s feet.
We sat outside in the covered market, enjoying the comings and goings. I had a deliciously fresh salad of broad beans, mint, and goat curd, while my husband had some divine duck rillettes — really melting — with pickles. Then I had a lovely chunky terrine (pork based with mustard seeds and pistachios and pink peppercorns) with salad and he had the best meat balls I have ever tasted (sorry Mummy, but they really were special) in a green sauce that I would happily eat on bread/​rice/​its own.
Two courses is £10. You can add pudding for another £2 but we didn’t this time. In the ‘shop’ part there are some delicatessen type things — oils and chutneys — for sale which we didn’t try either, so there’s another reason to return.
P. S. they are friendly to celiacs.

I’ve been here several times and it’s one of the best restaurants in the market. Excellent contemporary British fare that changes depending on what is available. They really care about what they serve which you can really see in the food they have on offer. If you haven’t been, it’s worth a try.
Service is normally pretty good but we’ve had some iffy moments but nothing that would stop us from going back.
Tip: reserve a table in advance. The tables go quickly!

What a joy.
All kinds of good stuff served here, and all on a tin plate for my pleasure. The brainchild of one man and his bird, Brixton Cornercopia bring together the simplicity of cooking in a wholesome and hearty delivery.
Using only local produce, the menu changes daily so what better excuse to pop in for lunch or dinner (the village has a late licence Thursday — Saturday) 7 days a week! The entire menu for the day fits onto a single sheet of A4 paper, clearly stating at the top; «2 course for £8.50 or 3 for £11.00» What a bargain! I opted for two and started with the pork rillettes served with a homemade bread. I think it may have been soda bread, but I can’t quite recall. To follow, I had the coq au vin with creamy creamy I have a cloud taken from the heavens and placed on the plate before me, mash. The chicken though a quarter piece, fell off the bone and melted in my mouth (I appreciate the term is so overused, but that’s what it did). Every simmered minute evident with each forkful.
I could gush on about the service being fast and friendly and or how wonderful it was that the chef himself delivering each dish, but that can get a bit droll.
Finial thought, it’s good food and good food is always worth eating. I think £8.50 is extremely affordable but if not sell something or someone to make this happen.

I declare myself a fan of Cornercopia which is situated across a number of different arcade spaces in the Brixton Village indoor market. It has a shop which sells locally sourced and home made produce. However, it is the restaurant which resulted in my visit. It describes itself as ‘ultra-​local food’ which sounds a little like a superlative too far. What it seems to mean is that the menu is primarily made from market sourced, locally grown or foraged ingredients.
Local sourcing only becomes a selling point if the food does the ingredients justice. Today, Cornercopia did just that. The gnocchi with wild garlic and new season asparagus was wonderfully fresh, flavourful and light. The lamb kofte was the size of my fist (no, really) and came with some zingy tzatziki, earthy hummus and flat bread. Both dishes disappeared very quickly.
The drinks list is fairly short and not especially inspiring. While sourcing products locally where possible should be applauded, forcing diners who want to drink white wine to choose from English wines alone seems a little unfair. Particularly, when the policy is not carried through into the red wine which is hardly the most local — the three bottles coming from south France, Italy and Spain. However, the beer (from Kernel) and soft drink selection is great.
Notwithstanding the minor gripes, I really like this place and I look forward to returning for some seasonal, ultra-​local food sometime soon.

Lovely. Just lovely.
Part shop, part restaurant, part pantry.
Jars and packets of home made goodies line the shelves– you could spend hours (and a lot of money) perusing their offerings. We sampled their resturant food this weekend too and it was fantastic. Homemade pork pie with relish and salad — perfect winter fare.
I finished off my Xmas shopping here — they were making up Xmas hampers with their goodies and wicker baskets.
Swoon.

Best pork pie I’ve ever tasted. Bought it for Christmas, and it was one of the highlights.

Brilliant food, and daily changing menu mean that you are always in for a tastebud treat. The prices are extremely good, and you know that what you are eating is home cooked, using as many locally produced ingredients as possible. This part of Brixton Village market is in an exciting co-​ordinated project, putting previously little used retail space back into active use, by local entrepreneurs, artists, interest groups, and niche retailers. Its an eclectic, buzzy, and vibrant mix of food, clothing, art, etc which is now being featured (as a ‘find’) in Inflight magazines. You must visit (and spend some time) at Cornercopia, which was one of the pioneers of this amazing project. Talk to Anne and Ian, good friends (in the making, if you have not already met them) and find out about their fantastic food, preserves and cakes, and all of the local food based projects which are underway. I promise that you will be back for more, just as we are. See you there!
G n K

Located in the heart of Brixton Village Market cornercopia delivers fresh, local scourced food which will delight your taste buds. The menu changes daily and reflects the vibrant location. It is one of the few places where everything on the menu will make you smile. At £12 for 3 courses of food which wouldn’t be out of place in any michelin starred restaurant, Is by far the best value for money you can get in all of London town.
It’s time to stop Reading this and get yourself down there

I heart Brixton Cornercopia big time. It’s a new shop that sells local produce produced in Brixton! It also sells stuff that people have made themselves so lots of home made marmalade’s and lemon curd and mustards and lovely jar goodness. The guy who runs it was trained as a chef and it shows in the delious food he makes. I had cakey yum-​goodness today and soup the other day and both times they’ve been really really fab. It’s only a little conershop so there’s not much room but they do a Saturday 3 course lunch for a £10 that I’ll be going to very soon. The produce range is a bit limited at the mo but that I think will be expanding as they get on their feet and into the growing season. The guy was saying that want to expand to take in fresh produce form local allotments and gardens. All in all it’s well worth a look.
It’s in Brixton Village which is one of the covered markets of Brixton.
They’re doing lots of events and things at the moment there. The main entrance is just of coldharbour lane, under the railway bridge and Cornercopia is on the middle cross section. If you want a real London experience then Brixton Village and the other markets of Brixton are really interesting and very often overlooked.