New on Wine List Confidential: Kricket

Bar manager Will Rogers aims for symmetry betwixt drinks and the toothsome dishes fired by chef, Will Bowlby, at this two floor site – the sequel to the original pop-up as part of a Brixton community project.

With a ringside counter overlooking kitchen action, which near inevitably ensures over ordering, Kricket is the permanent Soho incarnation of a pop-up which began in a shipping container berthed at Brixton’s Pop community project, home, until 2020, to 55 indie businesses.

Bar manager, Will Rogers has created a ruthlessly concise (21 bins) list ‘which still offers bags of choice,’ he says. ‘There is no particular style we look for, which is great because it gives us loads of scope and means the list is constantly changing.’

However, Rogers aims for symmetry betwixt drinks carte and the toothsome dishes fired by chef, Will Bowlby at this two floor site, the kitchen alone of which eclipses the footprint of the entirety of the original eatery. These may include samphire pakoras with date and tamarind chutney and chilli garlic mayonnaise, butter garlic crab with seaweed papad, and much written about, wittily titled Keralan Fried Chicken (‘KFC’) with curry leaf mayonnaise and pickled mooli.

‘A bit like the flavours in the dishes, we look for wines with a real sense of where they come from, made with care, which is why we tend to work with wines made with minimal human intervention – whether they be organic, biodynamic or natural. The result is a list jam-packed with proper wines and exciting drops!’

Ordered by colour, expect to see a white Vinho Verde (Casa Agricola de Compostela), orange Pinot Gris (Little Stomper Pinot Gris, Tongue in Groove, Waipara Valley), and red Côtes du Rhône (‘Roll the Dice’). The majority of wines are available by the glass. NB. At time of writing, this is a Bordeaux-free zone…

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Restaurants are graded on a 100-point scale based on five criteria: size, value, service, range and originality. For a full guide to London’s best wine lists visit winelistconfidential.com