Village East Bar & Restaurant

Village East was among the first bars and restaurants to mark the gentrification of Bermondsey Street, now achingly hip and awash with eateries, coffee shops, tiny shops selling expensive things and a branch of the White Cube gallery. Refurbs have ensured Village East has stayed fresh and now sports an industrial design aesthetic born of the reclamation yard.

The floor plan favours dinners with the main area now an out-and-out restaurant, but a busy lounge bar lies up a few steps on the right as you walk in.

Village East is something of a Bermondsey institution which has lasted the course as the area has enjoyed stratospheric gentrification.