Bottles and BeBeMe enter liquidation in London
The Spitalfields restaurant and its wine bar sister brand have stopped trading, with joint liquidators from Opus Restructuring now handling the three venues.
Bottles, the Spitalfields restaurant, and its sister wine bar operator BeBeMe have entered creditors' voluntary liquidation, with all three of their London venues no longer trading.
Bottles Group Ltd and its controlling shareholder, BBME Ltd, have each appointed Ben Stanyon and Anthony Davidson of Opus Restructuring as joint liquidators. BeBeMe ran wine bars at Mercato Metropolitano in Elephant and Castle and in Mayfair, alongside the original Bottles restaurant in Spitalfields.
Bottles BeBeMe liquidation: what it means
Liquidation closes the search for a buyer; administration would have kept it open.
The joint liquidators confirmed that all three venues have stopped trading and that staff employed across the businesses are no longer employed, a standard consequence once a company enters liquidation rather than administration. Liquidation is used when a business has no realistic prospect of being sold as a going concern, unlike administration, which keeps that option open for a buyer to take on the operating company.
Opus Restructuring's role is now to realise whatever assets remain, from fixtures and stock to the leases on the three sites, and to distribute the proceeds to creditors in order of priority. Neither company had publicly flagged financial difficulty before the liquidators were appointed this month. Bottles opened in Spitalfields in 2021, building a following for its natural wine list before BeBeMe expanded the format into two further sites.
Part of a wider slowdown
The closures land as UK hospitality insolvencies show early signs of easing from a high base. Accommodation and food service insolvencies fell 24%, from 306 in July 2026 to 233 in August, according to government data, though the total remains well above pre-pandemic levels.
Suppliers and landlords are among the creditors now waiting to see what, if anything, they recover from the process. The sites join a run of London closures this year, including Christopher's in Covent Garden, which shut after 35 years. What happens next to the Spitalfields, Elephant and Castle and Mayfair addresses will depend on how quickly the liquidators can find new tenants for the leases.
