Saturdays in Bermondsey - Bottle Shop - Kerb Southbank

A day of food & drink in Bermondsey and on the Southbank, mostly in photos. I haven't covered all of the stalls & archways, and they constantly change. Best thing to do is head over there yourself, bright and early on a Saturday morning!

Spa Terminus is a collection of archways in the backstreets of Bermondsey, full of artisan food & drink producers, which comes to life every Saturday.  There are two main areas around Dockley Road / Spa Road, and Druid Street.

Monmouth Coffee - 9am -1.30pm - "We sell beans (whole and ground), single cone filter coffee and espresso based drinks. Our organic Jersey whole milk is from Jeff Bowles in Somerset and our organic whole cane sugar from Assukkar, Costa Rica."

Monmouth Coffee

England Preserves - 8am-12noon - "We still make our jams by hand in Bermondsey, lovingly crafting the perfect collection of conserves for both scones and croissants, and cheesboards and curries.  If you would like to see us in the flesh, check out where the jam is made, then come down to Spa Terminus on Saturday mornings between 8am and 12 noon."

England Preserves are next door to Monmouth selling wonderful jams, marmalades and some treats

England Preserves

Ice Cream Union - 9.30am-2.30pm - Loads of flavours to choose from, though hard to resist Salted Caramel. Cornflake was very interesting.  £2.50 for a generous pot.

Ice Cream Union - Across the road from Kernel Brewery

Salted Caramel from Ice Cream Union

Poppy & Sebastian - Stunning patisserie products that had everyone reaching for their cameras, smartphones & wallets, whilst trying not to drool.

The London Honey Co. - "Fourteen years ago I decided I wanted to keep bees in Central London — there was a problem: we lived on the 6th story of an ex-council block near Tower Bridge with no garden. The only viable outside space, well viable to me, was the flat roof accessed via a fire escape... "

Fill up your own jars or go for some of their fantastic honeycomb!

The Little Bread Pedlar - 9am-2pm - "Since 2011, the Little Bread Pedlar has been making and delivering artisan croissants, breads and other treats to cafés, delis and shops across central London by bicycle."

Go and get some delicious breads & pastries at their Spa Terminus bakery near Kernel Brewery or head to The Pedlar's Workshop on Abbey Street:

"The Pedlars Workshop is a cafe, bar and gallery. Monmouth pour-over coffee, Little Bread Pedlar pastries, Kernel beers and Neal’s Yard cheeses, with regular exhibitions by local and international artists, film screenings, supper clubs and artists workshops."

Coleman Coffee Roasters - "Coleman Coffee Roasters is a small batch coffee roastery based in south east London specialising in high quality arabica coffees from around the world."

They share space with Little Bread Pedlar - coffee & a pastry is hard to resist!

La Grotta Ices - Quirky scoops & choc ices from Kitty Travers at the ice cream hole - e.g. Prune & Earl Grey / Damson & Grappa Custard! Open 9am-2pm I think.

Bermondsey Breweries - There are currently 6 breweries on the Bermondsey Beer Mile.  Kernel, Brew by Numbers, Anspach & Hobday and Bullfinch are mixed in with other producers around the two Spa Terminus areas.  Partizan & Fourpure are slightly further out towards South Bermondsey.

The Kernel Brewery (9am-2pm) gets very busy so I suggest going early and grabbing coffee, cakes, honey, ice cream & bread at the same time!

Kernel Brewery

Brew by Numbers (10am-5pm) are all on their own in Enid Street.  This is the best brewery for enjoying the sunshine, perhaps with a Strawberry & Mango Witbier.  I believe they are having a May Day party, noon-6pm, on Sunday May 4th - check their site / twitter nearer the time for details.

Brew by Numbers on Enid Street

Anspach & Hobday and Bullfinch Brewery (11-6pm) are on Druid Street, near to O'Shea's Butchers, Monty's Deli, Comptoir Gourmand, St.John's Bakery and Bottle Shop which you can read more about below.  Come here for hop rockets, smoked beers, cask vs keg comparisons and live music.

Anspach & Hobday / Bullfinch Brewery on Druid Street

Comptoir Gourmand - "Comptoir Gourmand is a fast-growing traditional French patisserie company. We supply around 25 cafes around London, in addition to having 3 cafes of our own."

Come here for both savoury & sweet options, and sit outside on their little tables.  The tartiflette is pretty excellent.

Giant meringues from Comptoir Gourmand

St John's Bakery - "We are open between 9.00 m and 2.00pm every Saturday morning when we sell our noted and very popular fresh doughnuts, our breads, our bag-in-box wines, Eccles cakes, wet salt, books..... Where we bake madeleines on the hour, to be enjoyed hot from the oven perhaps with a cup of our own hot chocolate..... in fact lots of good things.."

The doughnuts are often on sale in Maltby St Market as well, so head there if you don't succeed at the bakery.

The famous St. John's custard doughnuts

Jensen Gin - Look for the Jensen parked outside, pointing the way to the Jensen Gin distillery where you can taste their London Dry and Old Tom, both of which are excellent.  They plan to use the space for cocktails, masterclasses & more once some building work has been completed.

Maltby St Market - The thin Ropewalk market is ridiculously popular these days so get there early. Expect there to be big queues for the likes of African Volcano & Little Bird Gin.  Many rave about the food 40 Maltby St at one end of the road.  We didn't actually eat much from here on this occasion as we were full of ice cream & cakes and saving space for Kerb Southbank.  Click here for one of many blogposts out there on Maltby St Market if you want to get some more food envy!

Hot Cross Brownies from Bad Brownie

Little Bird Tim

Excellent £5 cocktails from the Little Bird Gin cocktail bar

Lassco Ropewalk - "LASSCO have been in the business of salvage for 40 years" 

Grab a drink and wander through the LASSCO salvage warehouse and you will be very tempted to buy something you probably don't need, such as an ornate bath tap or a vintage doorbell.  It's a unique place to eat, sat next to enormous coffee sacks, bathtubs and oversized door knobs from who knows where.

Look behind a curtain in the LASSCO warehouse to find The Eisenhower Room (removed from wartime US Naval HQ in Grosvenor Square), where you might spot The King's Cross Hot Club having a Secret Salon dance or two from 2pm on Saturdays.

"On Saturday afternoon, The King's Cross Hot Club will be playing in the Eisenhower Room in their weekly indoctrination of regular dancers and passing innocents. The event is now using the code name ‘Secret Salon’, presumably to deflect the intelligence services’ surveillance operations."

Dancing in The Eisenhower Room (removed from wartime US Naval HQ in Grosvenor Square)

Bottle Shop - 10am-6pm on Saturdays - The latest addition to the Bermondsey Beer Mile is Bottle Shop on Druid Street, a few arches down from Anspach & Hobday brewery.  It is only their second site following on from great success over in Canterbury, but they have had a stall on Maltby St Market for quite a while.

They sell a range of exciting bottled beers from all over the world to take away (individual and cases), but you can also open up and drink the bottles inside the arch at no extra cost.  What's more, they have 2 guest kegs which they will rotate each week. They started impressively with the deadly 10.5% Evil Twin Imperial Biscotti Break (Natale Sour Cherry Edition) and Brooklyn Sorachi Ace, a fantastic refreshing saison. They also had Girardin Gueuze Bag-in-Box sitting on a shelf for £2.50 a half.

The atmosphere was very pleasant, especially with the owner's son running around collecting glasses. It is one of a new wave of top beer shops in London, joining the likes of Clapton Craft, Brew Testament & Brewdog's Bottledog (coming soon to King's Cross), though it bears most similarity to one of my all time favourites, Drink of Fulham on Fulham Palace Road.

Kerb on Southbank - Street-food collective Kerb have grabbed the space in front of the Southbank Centre for 4 weekends this year, bringing together +27 traders.  The next weekend dates for your diary are Friday 6th June - Sunday 8th June.

A lot of the (lovely) usual suspects were there (BAO, Kimchinary, Anna Mae's, Donostia Social Club etc), and KERB also brought in a superb London beer bar (with Kernel, Five Points, Pressure Drop and Fourpure) and a good looking cocktail bar run by the Manhattans Project folk.  Here are a few photos:

Donostia Social Club

Kimchinary Menu

Bean & Gone

You Doughnut

Anna Mae's Mac'n'Cheese

Anna Mae's Mac'n'Cheese

I do prefer the riverside site for street food on the other side of the Royal Festival Hall as there is more room to spread out, and other Kerb events have been slightly less hectic than this, but I can't complain about the high quality food and drink on offer!  Bring on June 6th!