Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright (Tiger Tiger (London))

Member Name: fabulous_girl

Product:	Tiger Tiger (London)
Date:	03/07/06 (2317 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good music, air con, happy hour

Disadvantages: 'meat market' at times, expensive after 10pm

Now that I have left London (my student placement has finished so I am back in Kentish lands), I feel I must dedicate this review to my year's stay in the UK's capital, seeing as it was a regular haunt for my friends and I.

Tiger Tiger (TT for the purposes of laziness) is a nightclub and restaurant at Piccadilly Circus, which I happen to love, and I know a couple of my London-based ciao friends like too, so when I heard it described my a 'meat market' by a work friend last week I was pretty surprised. This could be because she said as they dragged me kicking and screaming into Lewisham's only gay club, where everyone dribbled on each other in a far more inappropriate manner than I've ever seen at TT.

Anyway, I for one like it there so I will now try to give you all a feel for the place as well as I can, considering my 5 visits have left me with some very hazy memories. TT is based at Piccadilly Circus I said, right at the top of Haymarket, so its in pretty damn easy reach of public transporters. You can either get the tube to Piccadilly, or walk from Charing Cross overland station, or Embankment, Leicester Square, Oxford Circus or Covent Garden tubes if you are feeling athletic.

Admissions wise, well, you have to be over 18, smartly dressed (last week we saw a group of guys get turned away in their sneakers or flip-flops) and try and get there when its actually open, pretty easy when its open from 12noon to 3am every weekday and Saturday and 12noon til late on a Sunday. Admissions costs are, according to the website are after 10pm - £3 Sunday to Wednesday, £5 on a Thursday and £10 on a Friday or Saturday. This means it is FREE to go in before 10pm, a massive saving on your night out, especially if it's the weekend.

I will have to skim over the restaurant a wee bit as I have never eaten in it. It looks pretty good though, if you like eating with little or no lighting, not good when your hand-eye coordination isn't up to much. Usually there is a table of girls clad in pink cowboy hats in there- the hen night crowd and a few groups of friends having a meal.

When you walk into the club/bar you are faced with a long bar, and some stairs. Carry on to the back of this ground floor area you will find a seating area and smallish dance floor and the restaurant area. The bar has huge and impressive looking metal tiger sculptures adorning it. There is also a TV screen here where they were showing the footie last Saturday, so presumably they always play big games. The TV was switched off later in the evening though. If you go right to the back you will find some stairs going up and some going down. Go downstairs and you will be faced with a very large dancefloor, but they tend to play pretty dancy stuff down there and it's a bit reminiscent of a student union, grotty and smoky (though as a smoker I can hardly complain). Go upstairs however and there is another bar and seating area, which is significantly swankier.

Upstairs again and you will be met with a large dancefloor and yet another bar. With clam-shell type booths, which are usually reserved for parties- you can book through the website.

The music that is normally played in Tiger Tiger, in the main area is RnB and pop chart dance, which I prefer because I can dance to it. The music upstairs is the same as the music downstairs, in the entrance bar area, so if you want a change of scenery its the basement dance bit I described earlier.

I have been to Tiger Tiger on 5 separate occasions. The first was my birthday and we went on a Thursday night. We arrived about 11 and stayed until three, mainly in the entrance bar area, which was pretty empty and filled with City types, boasting about their company credit cards and plying us with champagne. Well, it WAS my 21st, and needless to say, I can't remember much of it. The second time I went was a couple of weeks later on a Saturday night, we were on the guestlist as it was my friend's birthday, and it was just as well as there was a large queue. We failed to get there before 10pm though from her place in Ealing so had to pay £10 entry.

The last time I went to TT, last Saturday, my 'farewell to London' night was with my friend S. We met at 8 and went straight there, pretty early but we managed to stay entertained. It was hot hot hot last Saturday and so I was glad it was walking distance from Charing Cross, as the tube would have been unbearable. We had our nachos (their nachos are simply delicious, lashings of cream, guacamole, salsa and cheese) which were only £4.75 for a generous portion- it fed the two of us. This dish was part of the bar snacks menu, an alternative to a sit down meal. However, as there were no seats downstairs because of the football enthusiasts, we had to eat it standing at the bar. We asked if we could perch in the corner of the restaurant but this wasn't possible despite tonnes of empty seats.

After this we proceeded upstairs where we sat with a bottle of wine (wine is approx £12-20 a bottle) and had a girly chat (S and I went to school together so there was plenty of reminiscing to do, depsit the fact she had come round earlier in the week for tea). We were only harassed by one male, a short dude who thought we wanted to hear about his dream last night and just would not leave despite us laughing in his face. His friend dragged him away and we continued, before relocating downstairs again, where I bumped into A, a guy I had been seeing for a while (and met there originally). We spent most of the night upstairs with A and his friends, and we danced away with 2 more bottles of vino, before leaving at about 1:30 to head back, thankfully in A's car. Usually on a Saturday night, it is very difficult to get a taxi back from the West End after 1am, so I hop on the night bus after a TT experience, which was convenient for me as Trafalgar Square is a stone's throw away so buses are easily gettable.

Well, obviously I think TT is a good night out, otherwise I wouldn't keep going back. I have given you a taster of my nights out there which hopefully has filled in a lot of details for you.

Other stuff that you may find useful:

Happy hour is daily between 5pm and 7:30pm, where the bar platters are cheaper, as is wine and cocktails (by the glass or pitcher) by £2-4.

The wheelchair access is not great, as you may have guessed when reading about the massive amount of stairs, so its not a great place for the disabled unfortunately, unless oyu stay in the entrance bar only. There are only toilets (clean, with attendant trying to squeeze money out of you for a dash of handwash) upstairs and downstairs so you might find yourself caught short if you can't manage the stairs.

The full menu, including an extensive cocktail list is available online at http://www.tigertiger-london.co.uk/default.asp. There you will also find details on how to book a booth, get on the guest list (only really necessary if you are celebrating a special occasion, otherwise just arrive early and you should be fine to get in). The place gets very busy at weekends, so maybe I see my friend's meat market comment may ring true.

Overall, TT London is a good night out, if you like RnB and chart music. If you are a bit alternative it probably won't appeal, with the large amounts of suited men on the prowl, tacky hen nights and the like. The drink is reasonable and if you get in before 10pm, you're laughing- a dead cheap nightout. I only spent £30 last week which is very low for a London night out.

There are branches of TT in Croydon, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff Aberdeen and Leeds.

Address: 29 The Haymarket, London, SW1Y 4SP
Phone: 0207 930 1885
Fax: 0207 930 3060
Email: info@tigertiger.co.uk
Main Website: www.tigertiger.co.uk

I have given it for stars, taking off a point for disabled access and the too-trendy atmosphere that might put some off.

Summary: n/a