Deptford

Deptford is full of warehouses, industrial areas, council flats, railways on arched bridges and some modern buildings. It certainly is not as beautiful as the neighbouring Greenwich. There is some interesting architecture here though. Deptford High Street shows clear signs of gentrification with its cafes, pubs and ethnic restaurants. It's still mainly filled with Poundland stores, ethnic shops and diners, but there are some really cool places as well. Deptford is one of the places to look out for if you're looking for what's cool right now.

Sights:

• Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance is a beautiful building, that melts into its background like a chameleon. With a sunny weather the clouds reflect from its mirror surfaces making it look like a near invisible portal to another dimension. Brilliant architecture.

Markets:

• Deptford High Street is the home to Deptford market on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The street itself has interesting things other times as well. There are a lot of Vietnamese and Carribean restaurants.   

 Cafés:

• Vinyl... is a cozy and beautiful small café that sells cakes and other bakery along with some snacks and of course coffees, teas and craft beers. Theplace is also a record store with a great collection of second hand vinyl records of all genres! 
• The Waiting Room is an excellent small café that, in addition to great coffee, serves a variety of vegetarian and vegan foods. They even have strange things like wings and ribs as vegetarian versions. The veggie sausage bagel with spicy sauce and cheese was delicious. The prices are very affordable as well! 

Parks:

• St. Paul Deptford Gardens is a great little garden around the local church. This is a great place to rest your feet when it's sunny out. 

 Eating:

• Viet Rest is an authentic Vietnamese restaurant. The food is not quite as good as that you can find on Kingsland Road or on Mare Street, but it's the kind of food you would find in Hanoi or Saigon on the streets. 
• Wünderlust, or Big Red is a London doubledecker bus converted into a restaurant that serves changing menus. There's also more seating on a terrace surrounding the bus.

Drinking:

•  The Royal Albert is a cozy traditional pub with sofas and armchairs. They have a good collection of changing real ales from local microbreweries and some more fizzy ones as well. There's also pub food available.
• Job Centre is a cool bar set in an old job centre. Now they serve great beers, changing street food menu and a swanky atmosphere with music on vinyls. There's a great backyard beer garden with atmospheric lighting.
• The Dog and Bell is a local pub with a great beer selection including real ales and Belgium beers. The place is very retro, except it's real. It looks exactly as it must have looked like in the late 80's when the area was still very dodgy. The place isn't cool in a hipster way, but if you
  
  want to enjoy authentic pub without the retro (but with that feel), this is a great place.
• Taproom SE8 is a taproom for Hop Stuff Brewery. Excellent beer and some good looking pizza. The place is really modern and full of cool people.
  

Areas around Deptford: Greenwich, New Cross, Rotherhithe