These Days Aperitivo Bar
A spritz brand looked at the Bermondsey Beer Mile, where every arch pours beer, and opened its first bar in the middle of it (Hot Dinners).
Why go
Because the food is not what the name suggests. Greg Weaver runs the kitchen after the Culpeper group and KISSUU, a Japanese room in Sydney, and the menu that opened in March 2024 was house pretzels with aonori, fennel and togarashi; cured trout with rhubarb ponzu; Jerusalem artichokes with wild mushroom and an onsen egg; veal escalope with sauerkraut. You can order the whole thing for £85 (Hot Dinners).
The drinks are pre-batched and poured from taps along the bar, built on real fruit and organic wine rather than a syrup and a bitter liqueur, which is the whole argument the brand makes. Sundown Spritz is blood orange and chinotto. Venetian Spritz is their lighter reading of a bellini. There is a monthly special they do not announce in advance (The Nudge).
Read the venue's own line on the cocktails before you plan an evening around them: "simple classics and twists done well", with no infusions and no tinctures (These Days). That is a position, and it means this is a place to drink well rather than a bar programme to study.
Fifty seats in an arch with Persian rugs and old furniture, pavement tables when the weather allows, and the beer mile outside the door.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a Sundown Spritz off the tap first, then ask what the monthly special is, since they will not have told you. From the kitchen, the pretzels with aonori and togarashi, and the cured trout with rhubarb ponzu.
- Avoid: Monday and Tuesday, when it is shut. Also avoid arriving late on a weekday: the kitchen goes down at 22:00 even though the bar runs to 23:00.
What locals & experts say
- Catherine Hanly, Hot Dinners, announcing the opening in April 2023: "You've got to admire the chutzpah of spritz brand These Days who have picked Bermondsey's Beer Mile as the place they've decided to open their first bar." Coverage of an opening rather than her verdict on it. ref
- Gavin Hanly, Hot Dinners, on the kitchen launch in February 2024: "the menu is going to be quite different from your standard Italian chichetti, taking in a mix of European and Asian influences." Also an announcement. ref
- Hattie Lloyd, The Nudge, on the room and the intent: "in a pared-back space dotted with Persian rugs and vintage furniture there's room for just 50, with tables spilling out onto the pavement in warmer weather." Her outlet scores what it reviews and publishes the policy on the page, and this piece carries the legend with no number, so it is a preview and not her verdict. ref
- No critic has assessed it. Searches on 1 August 2026 across the plain-language shapes and the obvious outlets found no bylined review of this bar anywhere. All 622 lines of the London industry-vote file were searched and no working cook or bartender has named it. The rung here rests on announcements, and that is the reason it sits where it does.
Good to know
- Where: 100 Druid Street SE1 2HQ, in the arches. Bermondsey or London Bridge. Two 2023 write-ups give the postcode as SE1 2AN, which the register and the venue both correct.
- Hours: Wednesday to Friday 17:30 to 23:00, Saturday 14:00 to 23:00. Kitchen closes at 22:00 on weekdays. Shut Monday and Tuesday.
- Booking: they take them now through SevenRooms, whatever the 2023 pieces say.
- Size: fifty inside, plus the pavement in summer.
- Who runs it: These Days, a spritz brand, on its first bar. Founder Oli Man cooked at The Culpeper before this.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, inspected 19 March 2025. ref
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for the row "These Days Aperitivo Bar", so nothing is attributed to him. The master CSV line placing it on Druid Street near Maltby Street Market is curation's wording.
Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)
could-visit — Go if you are on the Bermondsey arches already, which is the point of it. Everything else in those arches pours beer, and These Days is a spritz brand that opened its first bar in the middle of them, which is either good nerve or good market reading. The drinks are pre-batched from real fruit and organic wine, lower in sugar than the Aperol default, and they come off taps behind the bar: Sundown with blood orange and chinotto, Venetian as a lighter bellini, and a monthly special they do not announce. The food is the part worth knowing about, because Greg Weaver came off the Culpeper group by way of a Japanese kitchen in Sydney and the menu reads accordingly: pretzels with aonori and togarashi, cured trout with rhubarb ponzu, veal escalope with sauerkraut. Order the lot for £85 if there are enough of you. It stops at if-you-are-passing because no critic has assessed this bar, at all: every reachable source is an opening announcement, and the venue itself says the drinks use no infusions and no tinctures, which is a deliberate position rather than a programme. Fifty seats, shut Monday and Tuesday, and they take bookings now whatever the 2023 write-ups say.