| Product: |
The Gherkin - 30 St Mary Axe |
| Date: |
23.05.08 (1204 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good food, wonderful location
Disadvantages: Pricey
The Gherkin and The Sterling Restaurant
30 St Mary's Axe
Location, Location, Location.
If any of you know London then you will no doubt know of the Gherkin (Official name 30 St Mary Axe). The iconic Gherkin is a private office block that was opened in May 2004. Apparently, according to their
website:
At 180m 30 St Mary Axe is over three times the height of Niagara Falls.
There is only one piece of curved glass in 30 St Mary Axe - the lens at the top of the building.
I am actually going to review the restaurant that can be found on the bottom floor of the Gherkin, The Sterling. There is a restaurant at the top of the Gherkin which gives 360 degrees panoramic views over London but this is just reserved for tenants and guests of the Gherkin. The
Sterling is open to members of the public.
The restaurant only takes up approximately half of the bottom of the Gherkin and is in the shape of a semi circle. The restaurant itself then is not that big. There is a bar in the centre of the restaurant that curves all the way around and then there are various booths and tables set up. There are also quite a lot of comfy sofa areas which sit quite a
few. It has quite a funky atmosphere to it, all the seating and décor is quite modern. There is also quite a bit of seating outside on the forecourt.
The restaurant itself is in the gastro pub style and is run by the outfit Lewis and Clarke who run a number of other bars in the central London area.
The food for lunch is on the expensive side. For example my burger and fries was £9 and this was the cheapest lunch item on the menu. (The nice thing was it was a business lunch so I wasn't paying!) Every other plate was in the region of £12-£14. This may have a bit to do with
the location but I have to say my burger was excellent. They have fresh fish delivered every day so fish is one of their specialities. Two people at our table had red snapper which looked and, I'm told, tasted lovely.
They do great bar food for the evening when you can get a whole group of you together. The food comes on platters such as The Sterling platter (chicken skewers, sausages, wedges etc), a vegetarian platter and a sea
food platter. Each of these is £16 so not too bad when you share it amongst a group of you.
In the evening the bar is very busy with obviously a lot of city people having finished work for the day. It's very crowded too but has a great city buzz atmosphere to it and really is the place to be on Thursday and
Friday nights.
They do serve breakfast as well until 10:30 so you will find a lot of Gherkin employees in there as well as a few tourists at that time.
The wine list is great. They do a great selection of champagnes for the rich city boys and then reds and white starting at approximately £4 for a glass.
All in all a great restaurant, a bit pricey but you cannot fault the location for a truly wonderful meal!
Summary: An iconic London building with a great restaurant!
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