Savage Garden Rooftop Bar — Restaurant in London

Savage Garden is a beautiful rooftop bar in London on the 12th floor of the Double Tree by Hilton in Tower Bridge. The bar boasts stunning views overlooking some of London’s most iconic landmarks including Tower Bridge and the Shard. The Wildside Terrace is perfect for alfresco dining and watching the sunset of an evening. For those winter months, the roof is retractable, meaning it can be a rooftop destination all year round!

The interiors are bold and decadent with marble floors, vibrant colours and bespoke artworks. The bar is high end without being too pretentious, which is always a winning combination.

Mixologist Andre Cavalheiro has developed an experimental cocktail menu at Savage Garden. Creative concoctions include Horny Beast (£15): Beefeater Pink Gin, Aluna Coconut Rum, almond, lime, green strawberry, smoke and oak bitters, apple, rhubarb and cinnamon soda served with a strawberry, lime and black pepper cracker. The cinnamon soda shone through but did not overpower the drink which had light coconut tones.

The Bitter & Twisted from the ‘Liquorless’ section (£9) was impressive. With seedlip spiced non alcohol, aperitif syrup, apple & rhubarb soda and a tongue kiss of cinnamon, this packed a punch!

From the gin menu we had the Lady Pink with Beefeater Pink, wild strawberries & herbs de provence, and Franklin & Sons Tonic. This was served in a large gin balloon spritz style which was perfect in the summer weather. Alongside the creative cocktail menu, Savage Garden offers an extensive wine and champagne list as well as a wide selection of premium spirits and beers.

The menu at Savage Garden features unexpected flavour combinations including smaller sharing dishes and larger dishes. We were impressed with the roasted cauliflower with labne, zhoug, chilli roasted ancient grains and craisins (£12). For larger groups there are meat, pescatarian and vegetarian platters to share.

We loved the injectable doughnuts served with salted caramel sauce and strawberry and basil sauce. They were four warm sugary balls of goodness that you self-inject with the sauce and then tuck in!

Savage Garden is a beautiful rooftop bar in London with amazing views and cocktails. Expect to feel special in this amazing space and therefore be prepared to pay a little more...

We went for the soft opening of the new Savage Garden LDN roof top bar (formerly SkyLounge).

Hopefully this review can be used as constructive feedback for the actual opening.

Pros

the decor was actually a lot better in person than the pictures shown on Instagram. Pleasantly surprised.

the view was great, especially when our booking was at sunset

the food tasted good (burratina & beef sliders)

good selection of drinks (bramble cocktail tasted good)

Cons

it took 3 people to greet us and then sit us in our reserved seats

In the 1 hour 20 minutes we were in there we were offered drinks once despite it being table service. They took the drinks menu away too. Tip: keep the drinks menu out so people keep ordering the fancy cocktails.

It took 40 minutes, after ordering our 1st drinks, for the server to ask what food we wanted. This only happened after we grabbed her attention to do so. It wasn't busy, she was either attending a group who knew the manager or nowhere to be seen.

We ordered the beef sliders to come with no beetroot. The server said she doesn't think this can be done as food is already prepared. Okay we said. 10 minutes later she reappeared and said actually it can be made with no beetroot. Great! When the food arrived it had beetroot on. Weirdly the sliders arrived attached to a giant piece of bone - instead of a plate. I wouldn't order this when eating with vegetarians! The sliders were attached to it via a cocktail stick. One was attached so hard that we had to pull it off and the slider went everywhere. Apparently the sweet potato fries were in the slider but were so small we didn't even notice.

When asking for the bill, it took 10 minutes for it to arrive and then we noticed that we were overcharged. To be fair to the server she changed it immediately.

Overall

Due to it being a soft launch, I was to expect some issues. I think once the above are ironed out, I'm sure they'll be a success. Personally I think the full prices are too expensive and I probably would not go back once the official launch happens due to that...

It was our first time visiting Savage Garden and we had high hopes of having a fun Friday night in the sun with amazing views. Unfortunately, all the venue had going for it is the view which is probably why they think they can get away with terrible, bordering to offensive service. We booked a table for 3, for drinks and food and requested for a table outside. Fair enough that it might not be possible to accommodate requests but when we got there, they hadn't registered our booking or allocated or reserved a table for us. Anna, the staff who seated us, treated us like an inconvenience and just tried to find us any table inside that did not have a reserve sign on it. She first tried to sit us at a low table that was not conducive for eating, and when we said then repeated that we were also there for food, she proceeded to sit us at a table for 2. When we pointed out that it won't fit 3 people, it was only then that she pulled up another table. She was very curt and abrupt, and dismissively said no when we asked if there's a table outside without even bothering to check. She then just walked off without asking for our order or explaining whether someone will come to take our order or if it's order by QR code which was on the table. It really dampened our mood and it was not a very good start to what was meant to be a fun Friday night (2 of us are mums so as you can imagine, we were really looking forward to this!). To add to this, the drinks we ordered took a very long time to arrive - we waited for almost 40 minutes. It took such a long time that we decided not to bother and just leave. We definitely won't be going back despite the nice views because nothing beats good...