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.
South Bank
GŎNG
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.
South Bank
Aqua Shard
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.
Battersea
Fiume
Italian Restaurant
Up to 160 guests
Francesco Mazzei's riverside Italian at Battersea Power Station, with a Thames-facing dining room, an elm bar and a piazza-style terrace available for private hire.
South Bank
Akara
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.
South Bank
Trivet
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.
South Bank
Sollip
Korean Restaurant
Up to 30 guests
A Michelin-starred Korean-French tasting-menu restaurant near London Bridge, its calm pale-wood dining room available for exclusive private use.
South Bank
Hutong
Chinese Restaurant & Bar
Up to 340 guests
A Level 33 Shard restaurant serving northern Chinese sharing menus, with two glass private dining rooms and a late-running bar high over London.
Wandsworth
Chez Bruce
French Restaurant
Bruce Poole's one-star Wandsworth Common institution, open since 1995, with a hand-painted private dining room upstairs overlooking the common.
South Bank
Restaurant Story
Modern British Restaurant
Up to 70 guests
Tom Sellers' two-Michelin-star tasting-menu restaurant near Tower Bridge, rebuilt in 2024 with an open-kitchen chef's table and available for private hire across three floors.
Wandsworth
Rosina
Italian Restaurant
Adam Byatt's Italian restaurant on Wandsworth Common, with an olive-lined terrace, the Thorn Bar and a 14-seat private dining room with its own terrace.
Battersea
JOIA
Portuguese Restaurant & Bar
Up to 350 guests
The top three floors of art'otel Battersea: Henrique Sá Pessoa's Portuguese dining room, the Perola cocktail bar beneath it, and a rooftop at the height of the Power Station chimneys.
South Bank
Oblix at The Shard
Grill Restaurant & Bar
Up to 250 guests
On the 32nd floor of The Shard, Oblix pairs Rainer Becker's fire-driven grill with a live-music bar and lounge, the city at eye level on every side.
/ 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.