Venues in South London
The river’s south bank and the ground behind it, from the South Bank terraces out to Greenwich and Hampton Court — views north, and buildings of the first rank.
Oudh 1722
South Bank — Indian Restaurant
Up to 80 guests
Aktar Islam's Awadhi restaurant in a listed Union Street townhouse near Borough Market, from an open-kitchen dining room to a top-floor cocktail bar.
Trivet
South Bank — Modern European Restaurant
Up to 70 guests
Jonny Lake and Isa Bal's two-Michelin-star restaurant near London Bridge, with a private dining room, a marble wine bar and a covered terrace for exclusive hire.
Akara
South Bank — West African Restaurant
Up to 40 guests
A West African restaurant from Akoko's Aji Akokomi, set in a Borough Yards railway arch, with a mezzanine private dining room and full exclusive hire.
Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court — Event Space
Up to 3,300 guests
Henry VIII's Great Hall, Wren's State Apartments and a Tudor beer cellar kept for dancing, let for private events across 60 acres of formal gardens beside the Thames.
GŎNG
South Bank — Cocktail Bar
Up to 90 guests
Level 52 of The Shard: the highest hotel bar in Western Europe, a cocktail lounge, champagne bar and interior Sky Pool wrapped in glass above the Thames.
Southbank Centre
South Bank — Event Space
Up to 950 guests
The UK's largest arts centre, on the river between Waterloo and Hungerford bridges since 1951. Ten bookable spaces, from a 2,500-seat concert hall to a planted roof garden above the Thames.
Aqua Shard
South Bank — British Restaurant & Bar
Up to 360 guests
A Level 31 Shard restaurant with a three-storey atrium bar and glass private dining rooms, suited to elevated receptions and dinners with skyline views.
Old Royal Naval College
Greenwich — Event Space
Up to 550 guests
Wren's riverside masterpiece in Greenwich, with Thornhill's Painted Hall for 550 and a vaulted undercroft below the Chapel built for dancing.
Chez Bruce
Wandsworth — French Restaurant
Bruce Poole's one-star Wandsworth Common institution, open since 1995, with a hand-painted private dining room upstairs overlooking the common.
Shakespeare's Globe
South Bank — Event Space
Up to 450 guests
The reconstructed 1599 playhouse on Bankside, with a candlelit indoor theatre beside it and a 450-capacity events room beneath, licensed to 1am.
Skylon
South Bank — British Restaurant & Bar
Up to 500 guests
A riverside restaurant and bar on the third floor of the Royal Festival Hall, reopened in 2025 with interiors by Conran & Partners and Thames views from every table.
Shangri-La The Shard, London
South Bank — Hotel
Up to 200 guests
Eighteen floors of Renzo Piano's Shard, from a ballroom on level 34 to the highest hotel bar in western Europe on level 52.
/ About South London▾
South London here is the river’s south bank and the ground behind it, from the South Bank arts quarter west through Battersea, Wandsworth and Clapham and out to Hampton Court, with Maritime Greenwich downstream to the east. The South Bank was rebuilt for the Festival of Britain in 1951 and has been London’s cultural terrace since. Battersea Power Station, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott and completed in two halves between 1935 and 1955, reopened in 2022 after thirty-nine years empty. Greenwich holds Wren’s riverside hospital, Thornhill’s Painted Hall and Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House. Hampton Court is Tudor and baroque in one building, in sixty acres of formal garden.
The hire product is defined by two things the centre cannot easily supply: the river, and the room. Views north across the water are the common currency, from the South Bank terraces to the Battersea frontage, and a clipper or a private boat is a realistic way to move a guest list. The palaces and the naval college let a dinner sit inside a building of the first rank, with the capacities and the conservation rules that come with one. Wandsworth and Clapham supply the opposite: common-side restaurants and neighbourhood rooms of real standing, at prices the West End charges more for.
Access varies more than anywhere else in this directory. Waterloo, London Bridge and Victoria put the South Bank and Battersea within ten minutes of the centre, and the Northern line extension reached Battersea in 2021. Greenwich and Hampton Court are a train or a boat away and are better treated as a journey, which is often the point — guests arrive together and stay together. Evenings end by river or by rail rather than at a taxi rank, so publish the last departure with the invitation.