crumpet

Northcote Road SW11 is maybe the best-kept secret in south london AND is only in fact a 10 minute bus ride from the Kings Road, Chelsea - or a 5 minute walk from Clapham Junction station (which you can get to every few minutes from Waterloo or Victoria in approx 7 minutes. (Also Shepherds Bush/West Brompton/Imperial Wharf on the London Overground take well under 10 mins - but those trains leave every half hour).

Northcote was a branch of the Falcon Brook, one of London's lost rivers and became an underground stream. The roads either side slope down to it from Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common respectively, thus ensuring its dubbing as ... yup, Nappy Valley. But in a good way. If you're a parent...

It's a sweet & laid-back mix of independent retailers, but has the fancy children's shops: Petite Bateau, Jigsaw Junior, One Small Step shoe shop, the Trotters chain (for 10 minute haircuts in front of a fish tank), plus JoJo Maman Bebe, a brilliant traditional toy shop (QT Toys), music shop, honey shop (also selling bee hives!), home & kitchen shops, pet shop, plus things like White Stuff, Fat Face, Whistles. Also pampering shops like the exorbitant but lovely Kiehls and Neals Yard Remedies. At the weekend there are buggies and children everywhere. I would say it's mainstream enough not to feel too community-cliquey and is a relaxed street where you can sometimes pause in the middle of the road, as the cars are pleasantly few and far between. Helpfully, the 319 and G1 buses serve the route.

The street is strewn with cafes and restaurants (and one yummy Gourmet Burger restaurant) and delis and real butcher shops and patisseries. Northcote Road had been a street market for over a century and it now has evolved again with Borough market-type stalls lining the street - flowers. olives, cakes and bread and sandwiches - even selling proper beigels (from far off Brick Lane Beigel Bakery no less).

If the street has a lovley attitude to families and children, then crumpet, which won an Observer family restaurant award in 2006 - takes the, er, biscuit. For a relaxed, simple lunch it's THE place to go with small children. Started up by a family with little ones, it serves breakfast, lunch and proper tea, has a big light space in the back with a wendy house & upper gallery play area and loads of room for pushchairs. It has a family toilet /changing room with what I think of as the Mothercare-inspired big toilet, little toilet, big sink, small sink scenario and enough room to swing a double buggy and a cat. They serve home-made food focusing on organic. They have a well thought-out children's menu (http://www.crumpet.biz/tearoom.html - click on the "children" box). The baby and toddler menu is fine-tuned to accomodate weaning and teething. They tailor-make children's birthday teas too. If this is normal food in crumpet it just highlights how abnormal the attitude to children's food is in 99% of London restaurants - and why this website is so welcome.

The everyday menu hits the spot too: breakfast includes porridge with banana and muscavado sugar - and of course there are crumpets. Lunch has usual salads and sandwiches plus all the baked bean, toast, egg-type dishes you expect. And they stretch themselves to champagne high tea. (www.crumpet.biz "about us" tells you where they source their ingredients.)

Amazingly, the front area is more grown-up cafe and in no way feels like a kids-only nightmare - you can happily read a newspaper, make a phonecall and have a coffee and eggs florentine (my secret's out) without feeling disturbed.

Come to Northcote Road for an hour or two (it's a compact experience) and have a wander with or without the family. Need more places like this in London.