I haven’t eaten much at Brixton Village; another corner of London being forced through the gentrification sieve but I think I’ll start going there more often on my quest to seek out good African and Caribbean eateries in London!
An impromptu Friday night meet up led me to Etta’s Seafood Kitchen. I didn’t have time to look at any reviews beforehand and went on the trusted recommendation of a friend who visited there 2 weeks before.
It’s a small eatery with around 5 tables inside 1-2 waiting staff and 2 cooks (one of them being Etta herself). As a small business I resigned myself to the fact that service would be slow, especially as the restaurant was packed inside and all but 1 of the additional tables outside were also full. Service was friendly, but I did have to nudge the waiter a couple of times when requesting extra hot pepper sauce.
We had saltfish fritters to start which were divine! For my main I went for the sea bass with coconut milk, which came with a vegetable medley, green plantain (or ‘green banana’ as some may say), yam and pumpkin.
I’m not a fan of fish head, but at least I was served the whole sea bass! I enjoyed the meal and washed it down with their rum punch which was OK, but I’ve had better (so probably won’t have again when I go back).
Portion size was OK-ish, I was in a good place when I left but thought there would have been more food on the plate as it was a Caribbean restaurant. But I guess if I wouldn’t hold European restaurants in London up to the same standard of large portion sizes, as this is not a cultural norm for such restaurants, I should be a bit more lenient on Etta’s Seafood kitchen!
I looked at the reviews afterwards and the ones I found were quite old (2012) and not great. I’m glad I made a spontaneous visit because if read the reviews first I probably wouldn’t have gone. Etta has made some improvements and for now I think I may have found a nice little seafood gem in South London. I’ll be visiting again to try out the rest of the menu. Watch this space!
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