Sky Garden is free on a booked ticket. Booking a table at Darwin Brasserie inside it does not get you a window, either: the window seat is a separate upgrade at £10 to £15 per person, selected when you choose your time slot.
So the view at London’s highest brasserie is a paid extra on top of a meal, in a building you could have entered for nothing. That is London rooftop restaurants in one sentence.
A rooftop bar only needs a view and a licence. A rooftop restaurant has to actually cook, which is a much harder brief and one that a lot of London venues fail. The tell is always the same: if the menu reads like a hotel bar’s food offering, you are paying for the altitude and eating the consequence.
These are the ones where the kitchen holds up, with what each one publishes rather than what the photographs imply.
The rooftop restaurants in London where the food justifies the height
Brooklands by Claude Bosi, The Peninsula London
Two Michelin stars, on the 8th floor, which the hotel describes as set among the Regency rooftops of Belgravia. The room takes its theme from British aviation and motorsport. This is the serious end of the category and the only one on this list where the cooking would stand on its own at ground level.
The detail that decides your booking: dinner is 6:00pm to 9:30pm, Tuesday to Saturday only. It does not serve dinner on a Sunday or a Monday, which rules it out of exactly the two evenings people most often plan a treat for. There is also a separate terrace menu alongside the dinner and private dining menus, so the terrace is its own proposition rather than the same food outdoors.
Seabird, The Hoxton Southwark
The Rooftop, The Hoxton Southwark, 40 Blackfriars Road, SE1 8NY, with Spanish and Portuguese influences and a sea to table menu. The terrace looks north across the river to the City, sunset is the point, and the seafood is genuinely the reason rather than the alibi.
There is an oyster happy hour from 3pm to 6pm, daily. That is the best value on this entire page and it runs every day of the week, which almost nothing else here does.
The kitchen and the bar keep different hours, and the bar goes later. Sunday to Wednesday the kitchen runs noon to 9:30pm and the bar 12:30pm to 10:30pm. Thursday to Saturday the kitchen runs to 10:30pm and the bar to 11:30pm. Seabird also states plainly that it takes reservations for dining only and that requests for tables on the terrace cannot be guaranteed, which is the honest version of what most rooftops leave you to discover on arrival.
Madera, Treehouse Hotel, Langham Place
Fifteenth floor, Californian-Mexican, and probably the best view on this list: the London Eye, the Shard, Canary Wharf and Regent’s Park all visible at once through floor-to-ceiling glass. The terrace is climate controlled, which in London is not a luxury but a requirement.
Alto by San Carlo, Selfridges
On the roof of Selfridges on Oxford Street, Italian, with a fully retractable roof. The rare central rooftop that works in any weather, and considerably better food than a department store roof has any business serving.
Wagtail, the City
Three hundred and sixty degree views taking in Tower Bridge, St Paul’s, the Shard, the Gherkin and the Walkie Talkie. The most complete panorama in the City.
Darwin Brasserie, Sky Garden
Level 36 of the Walkie Talkie, inside the Sky Garden, and by its own description London’s highest rooftop brasserie. It serves breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner through the week, with a Saturday brunch menu and a Sunday roast menu at weekends. Dining hours are 08:30 to 22:00 Sunday to Thursday and 08:30 to 22:30 on Friday and Saturday, and the chef’s table takes groups of eight or more.
The window table is not included and it is not guaranteed by booking. Sky Garden sells it as an upgrade at £10 to £15 per person, added when you select your time slot online or at the restaurant. Since Sky Garden itself is free to enter on a booked ticket, the honest way to describe Darwin is a restaurant where you pay for the meal and then pay again for the view. The food is solid rather than remarkable.
Choosing between them
For the meal: Brooklands, then Seabird.
For the view: Madera or Wagtail.
For bad weather: Alto or Madera, both properly enclosed. Most London rooftops are unusable for half the year and honest about it, which the marketing photographs never are.
For a Sky Garden window: Darwin, and pay the £10 to £15 per person window upgrade when you book. Without it you have a table on Level 36 and no promise about where.
For value: Seabird’s oyster happy hour, 3pm to 6pm daily, which is the only thing on this page that is cheap.
What to know
Book the sunset slot early. Every rooftop restaurant in London sells the hour either side of sunset first, often weeks ahead in summer.
Check whether the terrace is covered, and whether you are actually getting it. Rooftop terrace covers everything from a climate controlled glass box to four tables and a heater. More to the point, at several of these you are not booking the terrace at all: Seabird states outright that requests for terrace tables cannot be guaranteed, and Sky Garden charges extra for a window. Ring and ask if the forecast looks marginal, and ask what your booking actually entitles you to.
Expect a height premium. These are more expensive than comparable cooking at ground level. Brooklands aside, you are paying partly for the lift.
Ask for the view when booking, not on arrival. Window and terrace tables are allocated in advance. Requesting one at the door achieves nothing.
Layers. It is always windier and several degrees colder up there than the forecast suggests.
When a rooftop bar is the better idea
If the view is the whole point and the food is incidental, you will eat better and pay less by having dinner at ground level and going up for a drink afterwards. Our guide to London’s rooftop bars covers those, including the two best ones that cost nothing to walk into.
For dinner that is about the cooking rather than the altitude, see the best restaurants in London and the Michelin guide. Everything sits inside our main London guide.
Checked in September 2026 against each venue’s own pages, and rechecked on 2 October 2026 for Brooklands, Seabird and Darwin. Brooklands, Seabird and Darwin publish enough detail to quote and their figures above come straight from them. Madera, Alto and Wagtail did not publish comparable detail where it could be verified, so no prices, floors or opening hours are given for those three rather than numbers being estimated. Three figures previously on this page have been removed for the same reason.
Questions we get asked
How do you get a window table at Sky Garden?
Book a table at Darwin Brasserie on Level 36 and add the window seat upgrade, which Sky Garden prices at 10 to 15 pounds per person and which you select when you choose your time slot. Booking the restaurant on its own does not guarantee a window. Sky Garden itself is free to enter on a booked ticket, so the window is the only part of the view you actually pay for.
Which London rooftop restaurant has a Michelin star?
Brooklands by Claude Bosi at The Peninsula London holds two, on the 8th floor among the Regency rooftops of Belgravia. The booking constraint matters more than the stars for most people: dinner is served 6:00pm to 9:30pm, Tuesday to Saturday only, so it is closed on Sunday and Monday evenings. It runs a separate terrace menu alongside the dining room menu.
What is the cheapest way to eat at a London rooftop?
Seabird at The Hoxton Southwark runs an oyster happy hour from 3pm to 6pm every day, which is the only genuinely cheap thing in this category. Beyond that, the answer is to eat at ground level and go up for a drink afterwards, because the same cooking costs less without the lift. Note that Seabird’s bar keeps longer hours than its kitchen, to 10:30pm Sunday to Wednesday and 11:30pm Thursday to Saturday.
Should you book a rooftop restaurant for sunset?
Yes, and say so when booking. Sunset is the point at most of these rooms, so book for it rather than around it. Ask for the view when you book rather than on arrival, because by the time you arrive the table has already been assigned and the good ones have gone.
What happens if the weather is bad at a rooftop restaurant?
You may be moved, because at several of them you are booking the terrace and not the dining room. Ring and ask if the forecast looks marginal rather than turning up and hoping. It is the one question worth asking in advance, since the whole reason for the booking is the part that is outdoors.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 12 in the guide.
Last checked 2 October 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
