The Champagne Bar at St Pancras

You may have noticed that the faster-track Eurostar is now operating, and that St Pancras station has had a truly impressive £800million refurbishment. So have a few million other people. On the opening
night the station's new champagne bar was packed, with a long queue stretching down one of the central platforms waiting for their chance to say: I've been. It's not just any champagne bar you see, but the longest in Europe: 90 metres of tables, ice buckets, popping corks and smug-looking groups who have schmoozed their way past the velvet rope - all right next to the Eurostar tracks. It works a bit like those luxury goods concessions at international airports: they've got you captive, with time and money to spend, and before you know it you're toying with the idea of buying yourself a Hermès scarf or a Tag Heuer watch, or even gambling on winning a Ferrari.

Once you get past the queue and - on the busy opening night, at least - the exasperated and perfunctory service, this is a good place to ponder life's inessentials. Is the Pommery Brut Royal by the glass (£9.50) nicer than the Henriot Rosé (£9.50)? Is the revivified St Pancras building as impressive as Grand Central Station in New York? Does it really matter? Like champagne itself, this bar is inconsequential, bubbly pop that no one really needs, but is quite fun to have nonetheless.

The selection of fizz is a bit predictable, but none the worse for that. There are old standards such as Moët et Chandon and Mumm at one end of the scale and, at the other end, classic names that British fizz-lovers revere, such as Paul Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 1998, Billecart-Salmon Rosé and Bollinger Special Cuvée - and, for those with really deep pockets, a few vintages of Krug (a bottle of the 1949 will set you back £2,700) and the fabled Salon Les Mesnil 1996 (£210). For the less bibulous, ten champagnes are served by the glass.

On opening night, the long queues meant that the supply of 'light dishes' petered out quickly, but the very last baked potato that we saw being delivered was every bit as posh as the surroundings, topped with sour cream and salmon roe and served by a spiffily dressed waiter in a long black apron. Once the initial hullabaloo has died down and the place finds its feet, breakfast will be served from 10am and light dishes - including some enticing-sounding canapé plates - from noon until 10pm.

This place is perfect for toasting new romances, successful business trips, meeting old friends or celebrating the departure of the in-laws. It is so, so much more life-enhancing than the clutter of
sandwich bars and newsagents that even ten years ago some bright spark would have insisted we needed at the embarkation point. But don't let this gloss fool you. The second you're outside the station entrance, you're back to reality: a cobbled-together entrance that isn't finished, traffic gridlock and every sort of peculiar metropolitan behaviour you can imagine soon let you know you're back in London. Yet the bubbles were good, while they lasted.
Guy Dimond

Time Out London

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Latest user reviews

Shockingly overpriced and overrated venue. Go if you have slept with your secretary and need to make it up to your wife, otherwise London offers a million and one better places to eat and drink - yes even in Kings Cross.
Anonymous  May 12 2008

Honestly... the worst service i had in years. Unfriendly barmans and "scary behave"... The idea of the decade with the wrong staff... I do not recommend.
Anonymous  Feb 15 2008

This champagne bar is absolutely divine and we can not wait to go back! We went for birthday drinks and a light supper at 6pm and it was everything I expected and more. The station itself is indeed fantastic and the bar smart and elegant, with booths and high stools stretching along the... [More]
Anonymous  Feb 12 2008

A waste of time....we thought the bar was the longest in Europe as advertised....it's just the booths that run along the platform and no heating other than at the bar stools...the waiter who served us was rude and unfriendly...the bar is just a little booth you would find in any station...BIG...
C V  Feb 1 2008