Venn Street Market: when to go and what to eat
Saturdays, 10am to 3pm, free to wander: bread, veg, cheese and street food on Venn Street, SW4, with a cinema next door for afterwards.
By Clapham London Editorial
Venn Street Market runs on Saturdays, 10am to 3pm, on Venn Street, SW4 0AT. Entry is free and there is nothing to book. Clapham Common station (Northern line) is about 250m away. Check the market's website or Instagram before you set off, particularly on a bank holiday weekend.
What it is
A Saturday produce and artisan food market on a pedestrianised side street off Clapham High Street, in the Old Town. The market's own site says it works directly with local organic and biodynamic farms and small independent producers, so you are buying from the grower or maker. Sources differ on stall numbers, so think dozens rather than a fixed count. The Nudge describes green-tented stalls among the café and bar tables.
When to go
The official site gives 10am to 3pm. Some older listings say 4pm, so plan around 3pm. Tripadvisor puts a typical visit at one to two hours. For the best choice of bread and produce, go earlier rather than later.
What to buy
- Bread and pastry: Olivier's sells handmade French loaves, including sourdoughs, 100% spelt and ryes, plus focaccia, croissants, cakes and pastries. The Nudge also names Popina for small-batch bread.
- Veg: Teds Veg and Greener Greens, with seasonal produce from organic farms and independent growers.
- Cheese and charcuterie: a French stall, listed on the market's site as French Comte. The Nudge describes it as run by two brothers from a Camembert-producing French family.
- Fish: The Nudge mentions Dorset-caught fresh fish.
- Flowers: Stevens of Sibsey, from a Lincolnshire nursery, with garden plants in spring and summer.
You will also find shellfish, vegan homewares and candles, and handmade crafts. Reviewers on Tripadvisor say traders give out tasters and that the market is smaller than Broadway Market in Hackney.
Street food
The street-food line-up rotates. According to the market's street-food page, La Crepe des Delices does French savoury galettes and sweet crêpes on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays. Oshpaz serves Uzbek rice boxes with chicken, lamb or vegan options on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays. Parma Medics, an ex-ambulance van, does Aussie chicken with eggplant on the 1st Saturday of the month. Degchi, billed as the UK's first artisan biriani bar, also appears, so check the current schedule. There is a seating area for eating in. A Tripadvisor reviewer once paid about £4 for a vegetarian green curry roll, which is only a rough guide as there is no published price list.
A little history
The market began in November 2009 and became a weekly fixture in October 2011, after Lambeth Council pedestrianised the street. Urban Movement's case study says the street had been dominated by kerbside parking, and that the first phase of the Old Town redesign opened in 2011 at about £385,000, with pop-up power units installed down the middle of the street. In 2023 Venn Street won the Academy of Urbanism's Great Street title.
For after
Clapham Picturehouse, 76 Venn Street. A four-screen cinema and bar a few steps from the stalls. Book online through the Picturehouse site, where showtimes are listed. A £1 booking fee per ticket applies on some tickets. If you would rather eat, Honest Burgers at 75 Venn Street has outdoor tables on the street and takes bookings, with walk-ins welcome.
More on the market itself is on the official site and its street-food page.
