A hotel that begins on floor 34
Most hotels start at the pavement. This one starts a long way above it. The Shangri-La fills the floors from 34 to 52 of the Shard, the glass tower Renzo Piano designed beside London Bridge station, and everything beneath it belongs to offices, restaurants and the station itself. At street level there is only a doorway on St Thomas Street, a small ground floor lobby and a bank of lifts.
That shape decides how an evening here works. There is no grand staircase, no drifting from bar to restaurant to corridor. Every movement is vertical, every arrival passes through the same lifts, and the building keeps a quiet eye on who is going up. None of this is unwelcoming. It simply pays to plan a little, and to book a companion who has made the ascent before.
Three entrances, one of them yours
The Shard has more than one front door, and the commonest mistake is using the wrong one. The viewing gallery near the summit has its own entrance on Joiner Street, with tickets and queues. The restaurants on levels 31 to 33 are reached through a separate door with its own security check. The hotel keeps its own entrance on St Thomas Street, and only that one leads to the rooms.
When you confirm the evening, tell the desk you are staying at the Shangri-La and nothing more needs explaining. She comes to the hotel door, not the gallery queue, and the doorman points her to the lifts. From the station's St Thomas Street exit it is barely two minutes on foot, so a companion arriving by train and one arriving by cab reach the lobby at much the same pace.
Level 35, the sky lobby
The lift from the street stops at level 35, where the hotel properly begins. Reception is here, and so is TĪNG, the restaurant and lounge that runs along the glass with the river spread out below. For a first meeting this floor is ideal: public enough to feel easy, high enough that the view carries the first minute of conversation, and one short lift ride from your room.
Many guests simply come down and meet her in the lounge. A drink at the window, ten minutes of talk, then up together. Others prefer that she comes straight to the room. Both are normal. Hotels in towers tend to guard their guest floors more closely than hotels on a street, so if she is to come up on her own, let reception know a visitor is expected, and she will give the front desk whatever it asks for. It takes less than a minute.
Which way the glass faces
Every room at this height has floor to ceiling glass, and the panes lean slightly with the taper of the tower, so the city seems to tilt towards you. What you see depends entirely on the side. North faces the river and the City: the dome of St Paul's, the Walkie-Talkie, the Gherkin, the cluster along Bishopsgate. East looks down on Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast, then along the water to Canary Wharf. West follows the bends of the Thames towards Westminster and the London Eye. South is the least known view and one of the best after dark: railway lines fanning out of London Bridge, lit trains sliding in and out below, and the long dim rise of south London beyond.
If the evening matters, ask for a side when you reserve. East suits an overnight, because the sun comes up behind the Docklands towers. North suits dinner in the room, with the City lit across the water. Our guide to rooms that frame Tower Bridge goes further into which windows see the bascules.
GŌNG and the pool on 52
Near the top of the hotel, on level 52, sit the two things people talk about: GŌNG, the bar, and an infinity pool that looks out over the city. The bar is the easier of the two. It admits non-residents, it fills quickly on clear evenings, and a reservation saves waiting at the lift. It makes a fine setting for the second drink of the night, once the first has happened lower down.
The pool is another matter. It is kept for hotel residents under the hotel's own rules, and whether a visitor may use it is the hotel's decision, not ours or yours. Guests who want the pool hour usually swim before their evening begins, then meet their companion in GŌNG as the light goes. That order keeps everyone inside the house rules and still gives you the view twice.
Timing the light
The Shard rewards arriving at dusk. In London that moves a long way through the year, from before four in December to past nine at the end of June, and the half hour after sunset is when the city switches itself on beneath you. Book around it. A start fifteen minutes before sunset turns the first drink into a small occasion.
A two hour booking, £500, allows a drink on 35 and time in the room. Four hours, the £900 dinner date, leaves space for a table at TĪNG, a nightcap in GŌNG and an unhurried finish. For guests who want the same view at both ends of the day, the overnight runs ten hours for £1,800, with breakfast brought up while the first trains pull in below. The rates page carries the full ladder, and a cab from anywhere in Zones 1 and 2 adds nothing to it.
Who suits the height
Some companions treat a tower hotel as a film set; others treat it as a room with a lift. Michelle likes to begin a few floors lower, at the bar on level 31, and reaches GŌNG already describing the cocktail she tried. Samanta, who reads hotel lobbies the way other people read menus, will have a verdict on the sky lobby before the lift doors close. Tiffany photographs the view before anything else and keeps a notebook of hotel door handles, which the Shangri-La will add to. Michelle and Samanta are among the statuesque companions; Tiffany appears on the petite page.
The hotel belongs to the London Bridge area page, which also lists the hotels a short walk away should the Shard be full. How a room visit runs anywhere on this side of the river is set out under hotel visits, and the booking page has the single line to send when you are ready.