I do not know many people who like estate agents. In most people’s estimation, they sit alongside tabloid journalists, parking attendants, and nightclub bouncers in the low-life pecking order. They’re still a shade above investment bankers, of course.
However, there is a reason that they are held in such low regard (estate agents, not bankers). Who else promises you an exclusive viewing of a property...with another couple? In what other industry can someone try to sell you something in excess of quarter of a million pounds, but only let you see it twice - for 15 minutes each time? In the dark. And where else do you meet people who have reinvented the English language as part of their business. OK, I admit, the last could apply to bankers, too.
But estate agents do have their purposes, most obviously around the brokering of properties. And they operate around certain dictums that are hard to argue with. The first is that location is everything. The second is that you can’t put a price on a view, a rule that SkyLounge, the rooftop bar in the Mint hotel, follows to the limit. Any place that takes in Tower Bridge, the Gherkin and the not-quite-finished Shard in one panoramic sweep has a head start on the competition. Factor in the Thames (admittedly at a tight angle), Canary Wharf, and the skyscraper in Elephant and Castle that nobody seems to know the name of, and SkyLounge is out-in-front, heading into the back strait.
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However, if bars were only about views, then we would all be drinking on the top of mountains. Situated on the 12th floor of the Mint in Tower Hill, you need to factor in the hotel impact when rating this bar. And although the Mint Hotel is several steps above a Holiday Inn or Ramada, it is not a Four Seasons. The main hotel reception aspires to Philippe Starck-like glamour, but actually comes across as...bare. After taking the lift up to the bar, you are reminded that the clue to this place is in its name: Skylounge and Lobby. To make sure that every viewing spot possible is taken advantage of, they have installed seating along the glass-windowed corridor to the bar. Which is all very well and good, except it feels like you are drinking in the hotel lobby rather than a bar.
Things improve when you arrive in the actual cocktail bar. The staff are attentive and very efficient, and they offer a good range of rather expensively-priced drinks. Two cocktails – the Sky at Night (blackberries and kiwi shaken with Bombay Sapphire gin, and Haymans Sloeberry liqueur served tall with elderflower cordial and pomegranate juice) and the Thames Timeout (fresh raspberries and basil leaves muddled through Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka, Passoa liqueur and raspberry berry puree topped up with rosé Champagne and served in a chilled martini glass) stood out as personal picks, although you won’t get much change from a twenty for them. We settled for the house Champagne, which was fairly priced and appropriately dry. The bar is enhanced by the two outside decked areas that give you the opportunity to take in those fabulous views al fresco. Perfect for a summer evening.
The punters were your mix of City drinkers muddled in with hotel guests. This is not a fashionable set, but there was plenty of that cheeky chap charm about the place to compensate for those in search of pretensions.
The trick to any good hotel bar (an oxymoron in my book, but I’ll continue) is to make you feel that you are in a funky independent cocktail club rather than an appendage to a skyscraper. Skylounge doesn’t quite pull that off just yet. However, for killer views and a pre- or post-dinner drink, you could do much worse than this place. And at least it hasn’t been taken over by estate agents.
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