Hen Party #2 - Sushi Samba

As promised in my last post, today's is all about my sister's second hen party. Like me, she opted to have two - one for family (Afternoon Tea at the Ritz - all details are here), and one slightly more "party party" affair for friends. For this, she wanted dinner and drinks at a really special location - the word "luxe" was mentioned several times - so who better to turn to for inspiration than Rosie from The Londoner? I remembered a fairly recent post of hers about great places to go in London and that's how we found Sushi Samba. It was such a useful post so if you haven't read it you can find it here.

Sushi Samba is located on the 38th and 39th floors of the Heron Tower in Bishopsgate, just below another restaurant called Duck and Waffle which I am sure I have heard mentioned in the blogosphere before now. It's incredibly popular and we were lucky to get a table, despite booking two months in advance. As it was, we had to settle for dining at 6pm, which meant that we felt kind of silly getting all dolled up at 4pm, but needs must! Stephanie kindly took a quick outfit shot for me in the garden before we set off.

Dress, Bag and Heels - Zara

Sorry about the dopey look on my face, but this is the only photo where you can see my outfit properly and I always like to include what I wore if I can! I love this Zara dress. It's still available and is only £29.99 which I think is amazing for such a lovely piece. The shoes and bag you have all seen many times before - I wear both of them to death! Sushi Samba's dress code is "casual elegance" and I felt this outfit fit pretty well with that. As my sister put it - as if we'd be anything but!

We made our way into London and were greeted at the entrance to the Heron Tower by a lift attendant who politely ushered us into the glass lift. It shot up pretty quickly, and we all felt slightly giddy watching the ground disappear beneath us as we were whisked away to the 38th floor.

We soon recovered, however, when the doors opened and we stepped out into the beautiful restaurant we were about to spend the next few hours in. It's a stunning, modern, square dining area surrounded by glass, through which you can catch glimpses of the incredible view below. The ceiling alone is spectacular, with hundreds of light bulbs suspended from a bamboo frame. It gets more spectacular later at night as it gets dark.

Eight of us sat around a big table and as you can imagine there was a lot of chat and a lot of laughter and not very much reading of the menu. We decided to order some cocktails first to ease ourselves into it.

Now, I've always believed in setting goals in life. And sometimes the silly little attainable goals bring as much pleasure as the big momentous ones. One of mine has always been to drink a cocktail from a glass shaped like this:

Another was to drink a cocktail in a fancy bar with amazing views of London, and I ticked both of these off my list at Sushi Samba! (Just so you know, not ALL my life goals are cocktail-related, but it just so happened that both of these events came along at the same time.) 

The drink I chose was called Nina Fresa and was made with vodka, strawberry and grapefruit juice. It was delicious. I can also recommend Shiso Fine, which was served long over ice, again with vodka, apple and lime juice and Thai basil.

Once we were settled with our drinks, we got down to the serious business of choosing our food.

The food at Sushi Samba is a mix of Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian and works best when you order a selection of dishes for everyone to share, especially with larger groups like ours. We opted to try something from nearly every section of the menu and were happy to go with many of the suggestions from our very helpful waiter. The quality was outstanding and the Japanese style dishes were some of the very best I've ever had. In fact, I don't think there was a dish on the table that I didn't love, and the same went for everyone else.

We chose Yellowtail sashimi with jalapenos and lemongrass (possibly my favourite - this was amazing.)

Salt and pepper squid.

Tempura prawns (different to how I've had them before, with the coating more like a sauce).

Tiger Maki roll (with crab, prawn, beetroot yogurt and wasabi mayo.)

Glazed pork belly with orange.

One thing I particularly loved about this place was how relaxed it was. The food came as and when each dish was ready, and no one batted an eyelid if you wanted to get up and wander out onto the terrace in between courses. 

And this was well worth doing, because, well... just look at the view.

It had looked pretty good from the windows, but it was only when we stepped onto the terrace itself that we realised just how stunning it actually was. We could see Canary Wharf, Tower Bridge, The Gherkin, The Shard, and of course the curve of the Thames winding its way through it all. We all agreed we were happy that our reservation had been made so early, meaning that we got to enjoy the view in daylight.

When we'd finished admiring all the sights and taking photos, we felt it was about time we had some dessert. So back inside we went. Steph and I ordered the organic red chocolate chili peppers, which was lovely and really unusual. The tuile had a spicy kick to it that made a sharp contrast with the creamy chocolate, while the sorbet tasted almost like an ice cold red bell pepper. Some of the other girls ordered a passion fruit cake which looked amazing but which I didn't taste.

After dessert we headed back outside for more cocktails. The atmosphere here was even more relaxed than inside the restaurant, with cushioned seats to sink into and blankets and heaters on hand to protect us against the chill. As we sipped our drinks, we watched as the evening set in and London began lighting up beneath us. Magical.

I really can't recommend Sushi Samba enough. It was such an amazing experience and I hope to visit again some time!

What's the most memorable place you've ever dined at?

Kate x