Rooftop, high bar or terrace
Not everything with a view is a rooftop. The bars inside the Shard are high but sealed behind glass. A true rooftop is open to the sky, which makes it glorious in July and useless in a downpour. Terraces on upper floors fall somewhere between. Before booking, know which you are getting, because it decides what happens when the weather turns.
The ranking below runs from easiest to hardest to get into, which is the question that usually settles a summer evening. None of these venues is connected to us in any way; they are the places guests ask about most often.
Easiest: turn up and look for a seat
In summer the Southbank Centre opens the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall as a planted garden with a bar, looking over Waterloo Bridge and the river. It has usually been a turn up and find a seat kind of place, informal and seasonal, and it closes when the weather cools. On a warm weekday evening it is the least complicated terrace on the water.
In the City, citizenM Tower of London has a top floor bar with terraces facing the Tower, which has generally welcomed non-residents and is easier to walk into than most. It makes a good first stop before crossing the bridge for dinner on the south side.
A few days ahead: the hotel rooftops
The south bank's two hotel rooftops need a reservation on fine evenings. 12th Knot sits on the twelfth floor of Sea Containers London, looking straight across the water at St Paul's and the City. Seabird, on the top floor of The Hoxton, Southwark, on Blackfriars Road, pairs a long seafood and oyster list with a terrace facing the towers north of the river.
Both hold back some space for walk-ins, but on a clear Friday in June that space goes early. Book for the first drink and plan to move on for dinner, unless you want to eat there too. North of the river, Tiffany favours The Aviary, ten storeys above Finsbury Square at the Montcalm hotel, where the champagne tends to arrive just as the office lights start going off.
Weeks ahead: the City's free heights
Two of the best high spaces near London Bridge cost nothing to enter and are the hardest of all to get into. Sky Garden crowns 20 Fenchurch Street, the tower Londoners call the Walkie-Talkie: a landscaped garden under a glass roof, with an open terrace facing the river and the Shard. Horizon 22, near the top of 22 Bishopsgate, is a newer free viewing gallery, higher still. Both need free timed tickets booked in advance, and both release them in batches that disappear quickly, especially for summer evenings.
Sky Garden also has restaurants whose reservations include entry, which is the calmer way in. Security is airport style, so arrive early and carry little. Both are superb for an hour at dusk, less suited to a long evening, and worth building a plan around rather than attempting on impulse.
How late the lift runs
Rooftops tend to close earlier than street level bars, and they stop admitting people some time before they close. Upper floor terraces also shut in high wind or heavy rain, occasionally with little warning, and the last lift down can turn into a queue. We do not publish other people's opening hours, because they change by season and by night of the week, but the pattern holds: treat a rooftop as the first act, not the last.
Plan the second venue at ground level or indoors, a few minutes' walk away. From 12th Knot or Seabird, the river path leads east to the Bankside pubs and restaurants. From Sky Garden, the lanes of the City lead down to the water and over the bridge into Southwark. If the evening runs past midnight, the hotel bars along the river are the reliable last stop.
Height brings its own weather. Even on a still day at street level there is usually a breeze twelve floors up, and after sunset the temperature drops faster than you expect. Bring a jacket, and warn a companion in advance if the plan involves an open terrace, so that she can choose shoes for decking and a wrap for later rather than discovering the wind on arrival.
A summer evening, sequenced
In late June the sun sets after nine, and the whole evening can be built around it. Meet at seven on a terrace facing west or north, with the first drink while the light is still high. Move to dinner at half past eight, somewhere with a window, and come back out for the last of the light on the walk to the hotel. Three hours at £700 carries that shape comfortably; four hours, the £900 dinner date, lets it breathe.
For a night that keeps going after dinner, the night out format covers bars and later venues from Bankside up to Shoreditch, and the rates page lists what each length costs.
Company for a terrace
Jasmin starts late, from nine, and judges every cocktail by how it was built, which makes her ideal for the second rooftop of the night. Stacy carries a camera and will want to photograph the river from every height on offer; short notice is usually fine with her. Molly begins at ten and is the right choice when the rooftop is only the warm-up.
Tiffany, Jasmin, Stacy and Molly are all on the brunettes page, and each will tell you honestly whether the view was worth the queue. When the terrace is chosen, send the venue and the time through the booking page.