GŎNG: Western Europe’s Highest Hotel Bar

Nothing gets you in the mood for an incredible bar like grand surroundings, and that’s precisely what GŎNG, the sophisticated Asian-themed cocktail bar nestled on the 52nd floor of The Shard, offers. Looking out from one of the most iconic buildings in the world, the Shangri-La in The Shard is London's tallest hotel, and it houses GŎNG, Western Europe's highest hotel bar.

Designer André Fu drew inspiration from 'dougong,' an ancient Chinese architectural element featuring interlocking wooden brackets. This concept marries the historical and the modern, much like London itself, resulting in a stunning, oriental-inspired interior. Rich cinnabar red lacquer panels, bespoke mauve carpets, and antique bronze cabinets come together to create a unique, visually striking yet intimate atmosphere.

Competing with the easy-on-the-eye interior however is, of course, that perfect river-facing view. The setting is unrivalled for both sunset admirers and late-night revellers, whether at the champagne bar, the cocktail bar, or even the dramatic infinity skypool, mesmerizing views of the city below are everywhere.

But what's a remarkable setting without extraordinary concoctions? GŎNG Bar has recently introduced its "Hues of Culture" cocktail menu, a celebration of colour’s significance in history and culture. You can choose from ten carefully curated cocktails, each representing a unique artistic expression inspired by colour psychology and history, for example, Vermilion Sling capturing the red of the Forbidden City, or Silent Blues inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Hokusai’s Kanagawa Wave.

The cocktail menu is guaranteed to pique your curiosity, with various innovative and charming servings like miniature hot air balloons, vintage bottles, and even previously crushed Peruvian ants as garnish!

GŎNG provides an unforgettable and definitive luxury cocktail experience, bringing together stunning interior, glistening sky-high views, art, culture, gastronomy, and mixology to continuously impress and surprise.

Visit the website here
Level 52, The Shard, 31 St Thomas Street, London

Sustainably Scrumptious: The Churchill Bar & Terrace

After the summer we’ve had, it’s hard to deny the ever-looming discussion of global warming and the ways we can make strides to lessen our impact. Everyone is doing their part such as recycling, reducing waste, and lowering their energy consumption. But have you ever taken a step back and thought about what your favourite bars and restaurants are doing? This is what we love about The Churchill Bar and Terrace’s new sustainability-focused cocktail menu.

Located inside the luxurious Hyatt Regency London, but not without its own entrance right on Portman Square, The Churchill Bar & Terrace offers bar bites, craft cocktails, and hand-picked cigars (to be enjoyed on the terrace of course). This bar is pure class, with brilliant service and passionate bar tenders. We spent the evening sipping cocktails and chatting to Simon (one of the mixologists). You can hear while he explains each cocktail, and with each of our questions he answers that he loves the art of mixology. 

The new sustainably focused cocktail menu aims to enlighten and educate those that choose these tipples and was made with 11 different environmental causes in mind including wildlife support, bee care, and waste reduction to name a few. With each cocktail ordered, a donation is also made toward various conservation charities. Our top recommendation would be the Be Hive cocktail. Served in a beautiful handmade beeswax cup, the cocktail features South African Inverroche gin and hibiscus mead to create a smooth and sweet floral cocktail. For something slightly different, try the Green Lung cocktail. The reforestation inspired cocktail is bourbon based, and has wonderful vanilla and earthy notes. 

The end goal of this new menu is to serve a scrumptious cocktail while exploring how the bar industry can take those small steps towards a more sustainable footprint. Ordering from the sustainably focused menu immediately shows your own willingness to learn and begin your own journey towards an environmentally friendly way of living. There is something for everyone and it’s all for a good cause. Recycled ingredients litter the menu (in a good way!). Deep consideration has gone into every portion of this project: from drinking vessel to the edible components. Truly a menu to experience! By supporting The Churchill Bar & Terrace’s mission for a more sustainable bar industry, you are indeed making a direct impact yourself. 

Churchill Bar and Terrace is ideal for: a drinks experience. For people who love the art behind the drink in their hand.

Ambience: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Value:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Range:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Overall: 9/10

Address: Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill, 30 Portman Square, London W1H 7BH

Website: thechurchillbar.co.uk

3D Recommends: Café 1001, London

Photo credit: designmynight

The sun is finally making more frequent (and very hot) appearances, which can only mean that we will be eating and drinking outside more often.

This week, we tried Cafe 1001 on the corner of Dray Walk and Brick Lane in East London located inside the Truman Brewery and loved it for its relaxed, urban vibe.

What does Café 1001 offer?

Dray Walk itself is a buzzing street filled with a variety of food trucks, independent shops and art galleries. For the next few weekends during summer, there will be different pop-up shops and record fairs as well as DJs or live music. You can sit inside if the weather takes a negative turn or alternatively, sit outside along the street (perfect for people watching if your date is late!) The bar menu is pretty standard with a selection of different wines, beers and cocktail options.

What really stood out was how well-priced all the drinks were. These days, drinsk can be so expensive in venues but here, a bottle of wine ranged from £24-38 and there was an Apérol Spritz special for 2 for £12. Perfect in the sunshine! Next door to the bar is a takeaway pizza restaurant if you are hungry, serving divine homemade sourdough pizzas between £8-15 that you can bring to your table.

Café 1001 is Ideal for:

First dates, starter drinks with friends, mid-week lunches or post work drinks.

The outdoor setting is filled with laughter and chitter-chatter of the other tables, but isn’t too loud to disrupt conversation. Cafe 1001 is even dog-friendly in case you want to bring your furry friend to break the ice! 

Ambience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Value: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Range: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: 8/10. We certainly plan to go again after a snoop around the shops, spoiling ourselves with an Apérol Spritz (or two)!

Address: Inside the Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Ln, London E1 6QL

Instagram: @cafe_1001

Duke's Hotel Bar, London

Caroline Hampden-White becomes a Bond girls for the night and joins Alessandro Palazzi, Head Bartender in Duke’s hotel bar, in London’s fashionable St. James’s. It’s an area of money (mostly old), power and influence and a famous haunt of Ian Flemming…

 “Can I smoke a cigar out the back?” was the question. 

With a smile and a small bow came the reply: “Only if it’s a nice cigar.”

“Ok, I’d better check out what you’ve got.”

“They’re all good here; they’re Cuban.”

This epitomises Alessandro Palazzi’s attitude towards the serous things in life, like family, food and fabulous drinks. At 57, this neat, compact Italian has seen more of life than most.  Alessandro’s career has taken him to the very best places in some wide-ranging locations.  He spent time in California, and though the experience meant he “could easily write a script for Tarantino!”, it also gave him itchy feet. He moved between the George V and a slew of top London establishments including the Berkeley, the Connaught and the Mandarin Oriental, as well as Perugia and the Ritz in Paris.  It was whilst working in this latter that he met his wife, who was working in another fine Parisian hotel, Le Bristol. 

He is a great admirer of British food and drink and passionate about Scotch whisky.  He loves the Isla whisky festival and goes whenever he can.  He has distilled his concepts about the best bars and how they should be run as carefully as he distils his signature amber Vermouth, exclusive to Duke’s bar in the eponymous hotel. 

Dukes Hotel

He is something of an authority on Ian Flemming, whose association with Duke’s bar goes back a long way.  Post Second World War, Flemming used hard-won military expertise to bring his hero, James Bond, alive on the page.  Later, Bond began to appear on the silver screen also, but Alessandro says “I prefer the books.  In the books, Bond breaks the rules”.

Alessandro is not dissimilar, describing himself as a “black sheep” – breaking boundaries and beating the bad guys to become the best.  Bar tending is a cut-throat business you know; don’t underestimate the lengths to which people will go…  One such boundary was his appointment of the first female bartender at Duke’s.  Hitherto it had been a very well-heeled, but very male domain.  That’s a characteristic of Alessandro’s; he looks for the keenest talent and hires nothing but the best. 

Sitting beneath portraits of august gentlemen, including the current Duke of Kent, the atmosphere is part gentleman’s club, part society drawing room.  This place brings to mind some of the smarter, more private bars in which we find Bond.  After his wet shave around the corner in St. James’s Street’s Truefitt & Hill termed: “the finest traditional gentlemen's barber and perfumer in London for over two centuries”, Flemming would repair to the bar at Duke’s to start the day’s drinking properly with one of their superlative martinis. 

Peruse the menu, walk through the delights on every page.  When you’re ready, Alessandro and his custom-made drinks trolley glide over to mix your drink in front of you.  It’s reminiscent of Simpson’s on the Strand, where the glistening slabs of meat carved beside your table are placed in front of you before you can say Yorkshire pudding. 

The menu contains many good things cleverly designed in homage to Flemming and Bond.  Ingredients reflect the people and scenes in the stories.  Take “Le Chiffre”, which contains chilli vodka, hot like Bond’s anger while losing at the gaming table; cold like the tears from le Chiffre’s disfigured eye. 

They keep bottles of gin, vodka and other necessaries in the freezer, as well as the glasses.  A giant bottle of Snow Queen, appropriately encrusted with ice, returns to its frozen throne, ready for the next person in need of its restorative powers.

Alessandro prepares for me a “Baron Samedi”, so named for the villain from Live and Let Die.  About to touch my lips to the glass before me, an American gentleman a few tables away rises, bows and addresses those sitting around him.  His request is easy to fulfil – that we join him in toasting his wife on their thirteenth wedding anniversary, that very day.  She isn’t actually there; he’s surrounded by a genial group of what look like business men.  Perhaps he’s a modern day Felix Leiter.  I do hope the lady in question was enjoying a martini half as good as the Vesper in her husband’s glass, for martinis are the speciality here and they serve around two thousand of them a month.  Of course, that’s not the only drink they serve and the bar holds approximately 50 people.  You do the maths.

A Vesper

A tang of ginger, accompanied by one of orange and a delightful freshness from the Dalwhinnie.  Baron Samedi and I are joined at last and I’m under his spell.  It’s a deceptively light, fragrant and aromatic cocktail and the more of it you drink, the more you detect the subtle tones of the tiny amount of chocolate vodka used in its preparation. 

Playing further with quasi-religious themes, the Vesper martini is joined on the menu by another wonderful Bond-themed whisky cocktail: the “Evensong”.  It’s strong and tangy; the slight bitterness is very refreshing.  The Gaelic Italian is a rainbow of flavours as vivid as the pairing of those two cultures.  It uses classic Scottish and Italian ingredients including Coal Isla distiller’s edition and Passito di Pantelleria, a Moscato wine made from dried grapes grown in Italy's most southerly territory, the island of Pantelleria.  There are citrus notes in the background and the peat from the Coal Isla goes all the way through the drink from the first sip to the very last. 

The Gaelic Italian

I’d wager Alessandro’s clever concoctions would rival anything that Flemming drank at Duke’s and my instinct says that what’s served now is probably even better. 

With his love of booze, service, the UK and Japan, Alessandro has much in common with Bond.  Bond might be On Her Majesty’s Secret Service; we can delight in the understated theatre of Alessandro’s service, and that of his team, in this swanky establishment where they blend of glamour and sophistication, so that the best of Bond can live on. 

By Caroline Hampden-White

Devonshire Club

SUSD, a creative real estate consultancy, brought a new meaning to desk-to-drinks when they launched the Devonshire Club. The Club is designed as a two-floor space to be used for doing work or grabbing drinks. The area boasts three distinctly different bars, two lounge areas, and one eatery full of fresh, delicious foods.

After working hard and imbibing, guests can relax in rented bedrooms. Single and family accommodations are available, with over 68 amiable choices.  Complete with sprawling Apple TVs, high-speed WIFI, and Hypnos beds, these luxurious rooms can be utilized by members and non-members alike. The Devonshire Club is built in the heart of London, next to both the financial district and trendy nightlife neighborhoods, so there is plenty for club-goers to do if they can tear themselves away from the superb amenities.

Address: 5 Devonshire Square, London, EC2M 4YD
Telephone: 020 3750 4545
Website

The Hilton Bankside

Representing the next generation of design-led Hilton Hotels, Hilton London Bankside sits proudly in the ever-convenient location in central Bankside. Tate Modern, Borough Market, and The Shard amongst other must visit landmarks are all within reasonable distance. Hilton London Bankside offers guests a range of rooming styles so suit all needs. From classic guest rooms to suites to executive rooms to accessible rooms, this hotel has it covered whether you’re here for a romantic getaway, family vacation, or business trip.

Keep yourself and everyone else healthy and fit in the well-maintained on-site fitness center and pool. Set the kiddos up for the night with a certified babysitter while you and your partner hit the town. Secure a meeting room to impress fellow business partners in your upcoming gathering.

If you’d rather stay in for the evening, the Hilton London Bankside has you covered. Enjoy a bite to eat at the Oxbo Bankside. This historic yet upscale restaurant serves delectable dishes featuring regionally sourced artisan meats, fish, herd, and vegetables. Open for business all day, the Oxbo Bankside will entice you to come again for your second choice on the menu. For a more going out whilst staying in vibe, saunter on over to The Distillery. True to its name, The Distillery whips up signature cocktails, sharing platters, and bar snacks. Be sure to try a cocktail with their homemade aromatics, infusions, and bitters.

With lots to offer within Hilton London Bankside and within its general location, this hotel is not one to pass up when visiting London.