After an ear-popping lift ride up to the tapered tip of The Shard, you’ll find GONG - the Shangri-La hotel’s sky-high bar on the 52nd floor. Set roughly 597 feet above ground level, GONG feels weightless, far from the madding crowd, sophisticated and suspended in time.
It’s easy to assume that every corner of the Shangri-La hotel would be decked out in full utopian glamour. Not so. GONG is smart but understated, with simple red leather chairs and marble tables, never too far from the glassy edge. Cleverly screened by hardwood partitions, the focus is very much on the panorama below. Even on a drizzly day, the city’s concrete tangle is staggering. When the sun does shine, the haze lifts to reveal London streaked and glowing; by night, it’s all flashes and winks.
The view is the calling card, but seductive though it is, GONG doesn’t rest on its laurels - instead producing a regularly changing cocktail menu inspired by distinct themes. On our visit, it’s ‘Nature & Earth’ - a cerebral tribute to plant life cycles, with each cocktail anchored by a significant Asian ingredient.
Case in point: a Mango Margarita that could so easily veer into sickly-sweet holiday cliche is, instead, spiced rather than spicy, shot through with savoury sesame depth and topped with a fragile nest of saffron threads. It’s complex, clever, and completely drinkable. Likewise, the 'Chrysanthemum' is a buoyant, delicately floral triumph: Champagne spruced up with clarified citrus and chrysanthemum honey, and spiked with peppery Orientalist Gunpowder Gin.
As for dining, GONG offers a tidy procession of Japanese small plates packed with the hits: firm, buttery tuna belly sashimi; California rolls wearing fat crowns of crabmeat; and Loch Duart salmon nigiri blanketed generously with slivers of fish. It’s not cheap, and a few missteps appear - pork gyoza could use a little more salt, and karaage chicken (while crunchy and juicy in all the right ways) suffers the same - but these are minor quibbles, small clouds in a mostly luminous sky.
Maybe the air is thinner up here. Maybe we’re still reeling in the face of the dislocating, slightly surreal city diorama. What’s certain is that GONG has us dizzy with contentment. Whether from the novelty or the altitude is anyone’s guess, but more than a decade after opening, Europe’s tallest hotel bar hasn’t lost its lustre.