London Rooftop Bar: Sunset Cocktails & Food Review

New London rooftop bar and restaurant Solaya has opened on the roof of the Art’otel Hoxton

There are what feels like billions of new restaurants opening across the capital every year, but very rarely do we get a new rooftop. Plenty of places lay claim to being new rooftop spots, but they’re lying: a terrace on the first floor isn’t a new rooftop, no matter how many ways they try to promote it as one. I’m going to come out and say it: a new ‘rooftop’ venue must be at least eight floors high, or it’s just an elevated dining room. Enough with these fake rooftops everywhere.

Anyway, to the Art’otel in Hoxton on Old Streetwhere there is a fabulously atmospheric new restaurant on the 25th floor. There are Sunset Hour cocktails for £10 to have in fancy lounge areas that don’t feel so fancy that they’re overbearing, and a nicely buzzy restaurant takes over the second half of the hotel’s top floor.

New London rooftop bar Solaya: sunset cocktails and excellent steak

The menu is from Kenny Atkinson who has two Michelin stars for his restaurants in Newcastle. Solaya focuses on Mediterranean cuisine, pairing hearty, thoughtful food with some rather special new sight lines across the capital, to the east and as far as Wembley and the Southbank.

We kicked off with very nice tuna and steak tartares, and gentle slithers of scallop bathed in tomato, lemon juice and basil before a masterly cote de boeuf that was both marbled and tender, and a family-style lamb parmentier, paired with something punchy from the sommelier.

A dark chocolate terrine could have been chocolatier but the apple tarte was wonderfully zingy and beautifully handmade. A new rooftop spot that finally isn’t lying and is well worth travelling for.

To book go to solayalondon.com

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