Brixton Reviews: Katakata

katakata galetteBy Nikki Griffiths

When the boards started going up for this new(ish) kid on the block, the last thing anyone expected to appear next to Brixton veteran Negril was a vegetarian and vegan French galette serving hang-out and herb garden.

Half way up Brixton Hill stands Katakata. The whole vibe of this place is calm and serene – you could easily enjoy lunch for one, coffee with a buddy or a cheap al fresco bite to eat on a summer evening. Their extensive menu of super-healthy vegan and vegetarian French galettes and crepes, served alongside fresh juices, teas and coffees are brought to you by oh-so-friendly faces – making this a new spot for a feel-good feed. Make sure you visit the beautiful herb garden out the back, too.

Let’s start out with the happiest looking juice around – the apple, carrot, beetroot and ginger juice. It’s as good as any around and the vibrant colour will make you smile. I wouldn’t order the organic English tea again.

katakata juice

To eat, we ordered two galettes – ‘Veggie Lovers’, filled with tomato, aubergine, sweet peppers, spinach and goats cheese in a traditional French-style buckwheat pancake (which happens to be gluten free), and a ‘Caribbean Twist’ with jerk tofu, sweet potato, mushrooms and aubergine in a vegan pancake made of chickpeas, tahini and herbs from the garden. All galettes come served with a carrot, bean shoot, beetroot and spinach salad and they’re massive – meaning unfortunately, we had no space left to try the crepes – a traditional French sweet pancake made with wheat flour. But they sounded great – from the bog-standard sugar, lemon and cinnamon combo to the cheesecake twist served with strawberries, white chocolate, coconut cream and granola.

The Veggie Lovers was a cut above the Caribbean twist for two reasons – firstly, the base. The buckwheat base has way more flavour and retains much more moisture than its vegan counterpart, which unfortunately is a little lack-lustre. Secondly, the Caribbean Twist was missing one very important ingredient and therefore that lovely savoury galette gooeyness – cheese. Always get the cheese! The difference between the two made Katakata a very difficult one to call – but the outcome was this: Give us a buckwheat goats-cheesy galette and yes, we’d be back in a flash. Make that a vegan pancake stuffed only with vegetation, we’d pass.

It’s worth noting that Katakata has great lunchtime deals, offering a galette and a juice for just £5.