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This offer is available from Mon Feb 18, subject to availability as displayed in the booking interface. Offer includes taxes and excludes service charge. (Offer valid until Aug 31)
This offer is available from Mon Feb 18, subject to availability as displayed in the booking interface. Offer includes taxes and excludes service charge. (Offer valid until Aug 31)
Pleasant as Babylon’s sleek, glass-walled dining room may be, it’s not a patch on the wooden-decked terrace outside. Hence, on balmy evenings, the latter’s no-bookings rule can occasion the odd temper tantrum from the well-heeled clientele. The seventh-floor vantage point offers magnificent views, with the city lights glimmering beyond the lush tree-tops of the roof gardens below (where resident pink flamingos add a wonderfully surreal touch). The menu combines a seasonal focus with quietly luxurious ingredients. A starter of Kent asparagus, dandelion leaves and jerusalem artichoke shavings, topped with truffles, was lovely in its simplicity. Alas, the same couldn’t be said for the bread; slightly stale, it was served with rapeseed oil: definitely an acquired taste. Truffles and artichoke appeared again in a beautifully fresh, light pasta dish, accompanied by peppery wild rocket and parmesan. Lemon sole was served with splendid buttered samphire and fennel, braised celeriac and tiny clams; unfortunately, the fish was a touch overcooked. A bottle of Spanish rosé from the extensive, New World-dominated wine list was suitably summery. As dusk fell, even City slickers bickering over a wine bill couldn’t dispel the romance.
Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008
London's best review, food and drink news
Absolutely first rate!! Food fantastic, service attentive, anbience perfect!!! And to top it off the view from the roof gardens was unbelievable!! Tremendous little club there too!! Definately worth visiting.
We visited Babylon for lunch to celebrate my wif'e's birthday. It was a very disappointing experience.
The restaurant view is superb, the table service reasonable, but the food was awful - overpriced and mediocre in the extreme. The turkey dish that my wife ordered arrived as a half-inch slab of tough and dry, pan-fried meat. My beef was overdone and the chef seems to cook with a preponderance of salt.
The resturant manager's assurance that he would bring our criticism of the food - and the fact that we'd left a good portion of it - to the attention of the chef , didn't really do it for us either!
Having read a selection of other reviews of this restaurant, it feels like the 'Emperor's new clothes' . I can only conclude that, after paying around £80 a head for a lunch bill, diners are too embarrassed to admit that they've received poor food and even poorer value.
If you want to dine with a splendid view - and receive quality food - either The Oxo Tower restaurant or the Globe are a much better bet. We certainly won't be returning to Babylon! In four words, pretentious, overpriced, disappointing - avoid.