London Restaurants With a View: Height, Water, or Neither

There are three kinds of restaurant with a view in London and they are not interchangeable. Book the wrong one for the evening you are having and you will have paid a premium for a window you cannot see out of.

Height puts you thirty or forty floors up and hands the decision to the weather. Water puts you at the Thames and gives you the city rather than the sky. A roof is a third thing again, and it has its own page here.

This one is about the first two.

Height

Aqua Shard

Address

Level 31, The Shard, London Bridge

Nearest

London Bridge

Hours

Lunch Monday to Friday midday to 4.30pm, with the express lunch to 4pm. Brunch Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays 10.30am to 4pm. Dinner Monday to Saturday 5pm to 10.30pm, Sunday 5pm to 9pm. Bar to midnight, or 1am on Friday and Saturday

Price

Peter Pan afternoon tea £70, or £90 with a glass of Veuve Clicquot. Children under 12 £48

Standing

Thirty first floor of the UK's tallest building

How to get in

What you are buying here is the 31st floor. Afternoon tea is the cheapest way into the room, and it runs daily. The bar is the cheaper way still and needs no meal at all.

The view runs west over the river and the City. Worth knowing that the building’s restaurants sit below the paid viewing gallery, so a table here is a view and a meal for roughly what the gallery alone costs two people, and that the afternoon tea has a window table version priced above the ordinary one.

Duck & Waffle

Address

110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY

Nearest

Liverpool Street

Hours

Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sunday roast 11.30am to 3.30pm, afternoon tea Monday to Friday 2.30pm to 4.30pm

Standing

Fortieth floor of Heron Tower

How to get in

The only one on this page open at four in the morning, and the sunrise reservation is the one worth making. Their own description runs from breakfast and business lunches to midnight feasts, which is unusually honest about what the room is for at different hours.

Bōkan

Address

40 Marsh Wall, Canary Wharf

Nearest

South Quay or Canary Wharf

Hours

Restaurant Tuesday to Saturday 5pm to 11pm, plus Saturday brunch 12.30pm to 4.30pm. Bar and rooftop Monday to Wednesday 4pm to 11pm, Thursday to midnight, Friday 2pm to 1am, Saturday midday to 1am, Sunday midday to 11pm

Standing

Restaurant on level 37, bar on 38, rooftop terrace on 39, at 40 Marsh Wall, E14 9TP

How to get in

Three floors, three different propositions, three different sets of hours. The restaurant closes Sunday and Monday and the bar does not, so a booking made against the name rather than the floor is how people arrive to a closed dining room. The bar opens at four on a weekday, which is later than people assume.

Water

OXO Tower

Address

Top floor, OXO Tower Wharf, South Bank

Nearest

Blackfriars or Southwark

Standing

A London staple for over 25 years. Restaurant, Brasserie and Bar, all on the top floor

How to get in

Three venues share that floor and they are not the same booking. The Restaurant is the tasting menu, the Brasserie is sharing plates and Sunday roasts, the Bar is drinks. Say which one you want by name.

Their own claim is arguably the most iconic views across the Thames of St Paul’s, and the reason it holds up is the angle rather than the altitude: you are looking along the river at the dome rather than down on it from a tower.

This is the view that works in bad weather. At thirty floors, low cloud is the whole evening. At the height of the OXO Tower the city is still there in the rain, and the lights on the water are arguably better for it.

What has closed

Searcys at The Gherkin closed on 1 January 2026, for the foreseeable future, because of building renovations at 30 St Mary Axe. It was one of the best known view restaurants in London, and its own site says bookings there are now closed. Its old address now redirects to the closure notice.

Their own suggested alternative is Horizon 22, across the road, which they describe as the highest event space in London and in Europe. That is an events venue rather than a restaurant, so check what is actually on before you plan dinner around it.

How to book London restaurants with a view

Ask for the view at the time of booking, never on arrival. Window tables in these rooms are allocated when the reservation is made. By the time you are standing at the host desk, the decision was taken days ago by somebody who asked.

Check the forecast for a height booking and ignore it for a water one. This is the single practical difference between the two categories. Thirty floors up in low cloud you are paying a premium to look at weather.

Book the room, not the building. The OXO Tower’s top floor holds three separate venues. Bōkan is three floors with three sets of hours. Booking against the name gets you into the building and not necessarily into the room you read about.

Sunset is the slot everyone wants and the hour either side is the one to take. Earlier is quieter and cheaper, later gives you the skyline lit, and the changeover is when the room is fullest and the service slowest.

Everything here was taken from the venues’ own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Confirm before booking, particularly floor and room.

If it is the view rather than the meal, Sky Garden is free with a booked ticket and open latest, and Tower Bridge is free to watch from the road whenever a ship is due through.

St Paul’s Cathedral has the Dome Galleries if you want the height without the dinner, and a Crypt Café you can walk into with no ticket at all.

The London Eye is the view without the meal, and its river cruise pairing is one to check the arithmetic on.

Where to go next

Before booking any of these for the view, settle where you will be sitting. What a window table costs at The Shard is the only place in London where that figure is published: £90 at lunch and £145 at dinner, against a £39 set lunch that puts you in the room behind it.

The Shard covers the viewing platforms in the same building, including the rule that last entry is a full hour before closing and the bars stop serving thirty minutes before that.

London’s rooftop restaurants covers the third kind of view, and the rooftop bars cover it without the meal.

If the view matters more than the meal, do not pay for it. The best views in London ranks six viewpoints by what you have to arrange rather than what you have to pay, and four of them are free. Horizon 22 on Level 58 is the highest free platform in the city and sets no time limit on your visit.

The best restaurants in London covers the rooms where the cooking is the reason to go, and the private dining rooms cover the ones you can take over entirely.

Questions we get asked

Which London restaurant has the best view?

It depends which kind you want. For height, Aqua Shard on the 31st floor of The Shard, Duck and Waffle on the 40th floor of Heron Tower, which never closes, or Bokan on levels 37 to 39 in Canary Wharf. For the river, the OXO Tower on the South Bank, which looks along the Thames at St Paul's rather than down on it. The two are genuinely different evenings.

Is Searcys at The Gherkin still open?

No. It closed on 1 January 2026 for the foreseeable future, because of building renovations at 30 St Mary Axe. Bookings are shut. Searcys points guests instead to Horizon 22 across the road, though that is an events space rather than a restaurant.

How do you get a window table in a London view restaurant?

Ask when you book, not when you arrive. Window tables in these rooms are allocated at the time of reservation, so by the time you are at the host desk somebody who asked earlier already has it. Requesting a specific floor or room by name works better than asking for a view in general.

What happens if it is cloudy?

At thirty or forty floors up, low cloud is the evening, and the booking is usually not refundable. That is the argument for a river view instead: at the height of the OXO Tower the city is still visible in bad weather, and the lights on the water arguably improve in it.