General Store

Peckham

Five years ago husband and wife team Merlin Jones and Genevieve Schiffenhaus quit their jobs to learn the art of cheese and bread. In 2013 they opened the beautiful General Store on Bellenden Road in Peckham, south-east London. The store honours the traditional grocer’s shop, offering a little bit of everything, with each product selected for its quality, provenance and seasonality. Even from outside, you’ll begin planning meals, seeing the crates full of summer fruits such as nectarines, and bread piled high through the window. Inside, much of the stock showcases home-grown produce and entrepreneurs. There’s smoked mackerel from London fishmonger Moxon’s, preserves like Rhubarb and Rose from London Borough of Jam in Hackney, Workshop Coffee roasted in Clerkenwell, cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy, and Peckham-grown redcurrants. It’s also one of the few places selling the unique flavours of La Grotta Ices (try the fig leaf and kumquat custard), and specialist imported products like Papa dei Boschi’s Crema di Nocciola – a decadent spread made from Piedmont hazelnuts (fancy Nutella, basically). To top it off, wines come with paper labels highlighting country of origin, grape variety, and whether they’re organic or biodynamic. LF.