Lucky Cat At 22 Bishopsgate: Does Gordon Ramsay’s New Restaurant Live Up To The Hype?
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6 hours ago
Asian-inspired cuisine in London’s highest restaurant
To say that Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant at 22 Bishopsgate takes dining to new heights may be a cliché, but it’s also an understatement, says Susan Springate
Review: Lucky Cat At 22 Bishopsgate
A dizzying 60 floors up, the new rooftop branch of Lucky Cat is the highest restaurant in London, with views of St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge, the Shard, the Walkie-Talkie and Battersea Power Station.
Just accessing the restaurant, across the lobby of what is the tallest building in the City of London, through security, and a smooth ascent up 60 storeys in one of Europe’s fastest lifts (at eight metres per second no less!) fills you with anticipation. Along a darkened corridor and wham! A wall of glass and 360-degree views, lit up in the night sky, leave you breathless. You feel as if you have just stepped into a scene from Lost in Translation, only this is London, not Tokyo.
It’s a beautiful space, all dark finishes, black lacquer and subtle lighting, from the suspended shoji-inspired sunset screens to the back-lit main bar, which reflected on the full-length windows, looks almost like an amber-hued mirage of Jaipur’s Palace of the Winds. Or maybe I had one too many cocktails!
If I did, it’s hardly surprising. Like its sister restaurants in Mayfair, Manchester and Miami, Lucky Cat prides itself on its innovative cocktail list, from its signature Lucky Cat Negroni, which involves rolling a dice to select your unique gin, bitter and vermouth combination, to a martini from its exclusive martini menu, as well as a seemingly endless list of Japanese whiskeys and sakes.
On a Wednesday night, Lucky Cat is in full party mood, a live DJ set delivering uplifting dance tunes beneath black industrial piping and Mid-Century sputnik-style lighting to a mixed crowd, seated on low sofas and chairs in rich plum and bronze tones.
The dining area is a mix of small marble tables set alongside expansive window walls – not for the faint-hearted – and wooden tables in the centre of the room for larger groups, while barstools at the sushi bar provides a more interactive experience. There’s also a private dining room, which can accommodate up to 18 guests, offering a ‘Feast’ menu for £185pp.
We opted for the more modest, yet still relatively pricey ‘Journey’ menu at £95pp, which includes several of the Lucky Cat classics: Kyoto cucumbers finished with a delicate sesame dressing, the baby squid, the spicy tuna maki and the wagyu gunkan, the latter sadly in such small servings as to leave one wanting for more. This menu definitely saves the best for last: the grilled miso salmon is a wonderful succulent chunk of fish, glazed in wasabi miso, which melts in the mouth. The Iberico pork chop was disappointing, but the miso aubergine was a dazzling surprise of sweet and spicy gochujang, a crispy sesame top, providing a delightful counterbalance crunch to the soft earthy flesh of the aubergine.
We also ordered a king crab salad on the side, which proved one of my favourite dishes. Served on a grey ceramic platter, were generous pieces of crab meat, with a mêlée of wafer thin slices of radish and herbs, and tiny rounds of apple, with a wasabi and pomelo sauce, which cut through the saltiness of some of the other dishes.
And then there was dessert. The show-stopping mandarin pannacotta, comprising an orange shell containing a zingy fruity inner layer, sugary crumble and pieces of ginger. Our wonderful Ecuadorean waiter Andrés finally revealed that the exquisite mandarin shell was actually white chocolate, at which point we smashed it open and dug in…
Our only disappointment was that we didn’t get to marvel at the view over dinner as we were sat in the middle of the restaurant. As luck would have it though, the charming maître d was on hand to take us for a tour of the Lucky Cat bar terrace on the 61st floor, which will be the highest rooftop bar in Europe with its fully retractable roof in summer, when it opens later this year. With sweeping panoramic views, it makes you proud to be a Londoner.
Next time I will come back on a clear day. I love the idea of the extremely reasonable express lunch menu which offers two courses for £29 and three for £34 Monday to Friday, 11.30 am to 6pm – and a chance to watch the city go from day to night – from the best seat in town.
THE FINAL WORD
More than a restaurant, Lucky Cat at 22 Bishopsgate is an experience. It’s expensive, but well worth the outlay for the view alone. And where else can you enjoy delicious Asian-inspired food and innovative cocktails in a fun atmosphere with the landmarks of London laid out at your feet?
