K's Spice African Restaurant

Best-Value Restaurants in South East London: Cheap, But Not Cheap Eats | Eater London

"Mention Erith to a Londoner and you will get a few stock responses. “Where?” is the most common, “Isn’t that in Gondor?” is another. Lena Dunham might fall asleep and wake up on Brighton Beach, but a Londoner might mistakenly take the night bus all the way to Erith in a drunken stupor, where the buildings melt away and the mighty Thames looks like a sea separating Kent and Essex. Sometimes it’s worth riding buses to their termini — Erith feels like Kent but it has one of the biggest Nigerian communities in the U.K. And an unlikely restaurant scene. While creamy lamb rib suya can be found over at Korede’s Suya Spot, at K’s African Spice the focus is on Yoruba soups and stews. A steady stream of customers come to take away fierce pepper soups or complex stews made from egusi or okro, while there are uncles and aunties eating in who can expertly mould glossy balls of pounded yam the colour of unhewn marble into improvised scoops with more sprezzatura than any Italian. Perhaps Erith is too far away and not concentrated enough to be a restaurant destination...yet, but it is a reminder that London is still London right up until the ends, and the ends of the ends." - Jonathan Nunn