Peckham, Pizza and Parking

Peckham wouldn’t immediately spring to mind when thinking of hot, young, alternative spots in London. Step off the train and you are met with dirty streets, fluorescent plastic shop signs which look like they’ve seen better days and a questionable lingering… aroma. My brother and I came to meet some of his friends at a ‘rooftop bar’ just off Peckham high street and admittedly my heart sunk a little when stepping out of the station. Never one to bail on a plan, we soldiered on looking for our intended destination and eventually stumbled upon The Bussey Building. It turns out this wasn’t where we were actually meant to be, but after walking through the alleyway leading to its outside courtyard there was no way I was leaving without exploring. Beautifully detailed black and white graffiti sprawled up the brick walls and the muffled thump of bass drifted through a side gate. The music and street art together screamed Bristol to me and left me itching to get inside.

To my delight, we had managed to hit upon an outdoor street food festival. Pop up food stalls were scattered everywhere serving everything from burritos to oysters. The mix of reggae, soul and world music boomed away as people bustled around, following their noses to their cuisine of choice. Giant letters decorated the brick courtyard and, although I don’t have a clue what they were meant to spell, they added to the fun and quirky vibe of the event. While the boys queued to get some drinks I took a wander and absorbed all the various sights and smells. 

One of my favourite stalls was ‘Van Dough' which, as the name might suggest, had an actual pizza oven… IN A VAN. If that’s not innovative I don’t know what is. Not only does the name of the van fill me with joy, but I would also happily lop off an ear to get my hands on one of their pizzas. Unfortunately, due to the surprise nature of our visit, I had no money on me so had to simply look on and drool as cheesy, meaty, doughy and generally delicious looking pizzas were whisked past me. 

There's no rest for the wicked, however, and we promptly moved onto the second leg of the evening. The boys led me around the corner to a car park- again, heart = sinking. Oh ye of little faith. After trekking up the grotty stairwell, which also featured a questionable lingering aroma, we arrived at the top two levels, which Frank's calls home. I was surprised to see a long queue of people snaking back through the empty parking spaces. Still feeling slightly bemused, I looked to my left and saw what all the fuss was about. From the upper floors of this humble car park in Peckham we had a spectacular view of the London skyline, complete with sunset. Heading on in, the 2 upper floors were dotted with sofas, cafes and other fairly bizarre things you wouldn’t expect to see in a car park, including this very cool moving light display:

The very top level featured even better views than those of two floors below. Here friends gathered around long rows of picnic benches getting steadily more pissed. Deciding this was a fantastic idea, we parked ourselves down while one of the boys went and ordered an enormous round of beers (the bar also had a very British queueing system that earned it top marks in my books). More than anything else, the atmosphere was buzzing, vibrant and relaxed and topped off a lovely evening of pleasant Peckham surprises. Lesson well and truly learnt – don’t judge a book by its cover. Or smell come to that.  

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