London’s Best Rooftop Bars for the First Warm Days

The moment London gets a run of warm days, everyone looks up. Rooftop bars are the city’s not-so-secret weapon, and by April they’re back in business. Here’s how to make the most of them.

Book ahead, always

The good ones fill up the second the forecast looks promising. If the sun’s out on a Friday, you’re already too late to walk in, so plan a day or two early.

East versus West

Shoreditch rooftops lean young and lively, while the ones around the City and the South Bank trade on the view. Both are great. It just depends whether you want a party or a panorama. If you’re after more ideas, our piece on a weekend when the weather finally turns is worth a look.

Chasing the best of them

New rooftops open every year and the pecking order shifts constantly. Keeping an eye on Lamplit London is an easy way to know which ones are worth the queue this season.

Weather that isn’t quite guaranteed

April rooftop weather is genuinely unreliable, one of the trickier months to plan around, warm and bright one day and back to a coat the next. Most rooftop bars handle this with heaters and partial covering, but it’s worth checking a specific venue’s setup before booking if the forecast looks borderline, since some are much better equipped for a slightly chilly evening than others. Calling ahead to ask rather than assuming avoids arriving somewhere fully exposed on a night that turns out colder than expected.

The earliest warm days of the year also tend to see the longest queues and the highest prices, since everyone’s been waiting all winter for exactly this moment. If flexibility allows, waiting a week or two after the very first warm spell often gets you a calmer, cheaper version of the same experience, once the initial rush has settled and people have gone back to their normal routines rather than treating every sunny hour as an event.

Hidden rooftops worth knowing

Beyond the famous, heavily marketed rooftop bars, London has a decent number of smaller, less publicised rooftop spaces attached to hotels and members’ clubs that allow non-members or non-guests in for a drink, often with far better views and considerably shorter queues than the well known names. These rarely show up in generic listicles, so it’s worth asking locally or checking hotel websites directly rather than relying purely on search results, which tend to surface the same handful of famous venues repeatedly.

What to wear when the plan changes twice

Rooftop dressing in April really means dressing for two different evenings at once, warm enough to sit outside comfortably but with something to add once the sun drops and the breeze picks up at height, which happens faster on a rooftop than at street level. A jacket that can be draped over a chair rather than one that needs to be worn the whole time tends to be the most practical choice, giving the flexibility to adjust as the evening goes on rather than committing to one option all night.

For more inspiration, take a look at our guide to Summer in the City: A Local’s Guide to June in London.