“I’m A Food Journalist & This Might Be London’s Most Ambitious Restaurant Yet”
There are restaurants in London that rely on atmosphere, and then there are restaurants that rely on altitude. Bread Street Kitchen & Bar at 22 Bishopsgate, currently amongst the highest restaurants in London, somehow manages to build an identity around both. You arrive at the skyscraper and embark on a 59-floor ascent into the sky, only to emerge into a dining room that feels less like a restaurant and more like the private lounge of a billionaire who occasionally hosts breakfast in the penthouse.
In Partnership With Gordon Ramsay Restaurants
London unfolds beneath you in a way that almost feels disorientating, transportative, almost functioning to manifest a whole new world. St Paul’s looks miniature. The Shard, usually the city’s great looming giant, suddenly feels barely taller than you. You spend the first ten minutes pointing at landmarks you’ve walked past your entire life, shocked that this angle of the city has existed above your head the whole time.
The opening also marks a huge moment for Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Global, becoming its 100th restaurant worldwide and perhaps its most ambitious Bread Street Kitchen & Bar yet. Where the Savoy restaurants feel elegant, traditional, quietly luxurious, this feels like the absolute pinnacle of the brand’s confidence. It is glossy, modern, cinematic, like dining aboard a spaceship designed by someone who really enjoys martinis.
If anything, seeing St Paul’s look so tiny — seeing your own world look so small — while drinking a mimosa at 59 floors up is worth the trip alone.
Mallory, Junior Food & Drink Editor
What sets it apart
There’s something deeply surreal about eating breakfast this high above London. The room itself is all floor-to-ceiling glass, sharp lines, soft lighting, and uninterrupted skyline. Every table feels suspended above the city. Even the clouds seem close enough to interfere with your coffee order. But what struck me most is how quickly the novelty settles into comfort.
It would be easy for a restaurant like this to rely entirely on the view, to become little more than a place tourists visit once for a photograph. Instead, there’s homely (or, perhaps, mansionly) warmth to it. Staff glide around calmly despite the grandeur of the setting, topping up mimosas before you realise you need one and somehow making breakfast at the top of London feel quite casual.
Gordon Ramsay has built restaurants across the world, collected Michelin stars, television empires, hotels, bars, burger chains, and now a flagship restaurant suspended above London’s financial district that feels like the full-scale expression of the brand.
There’s also something undeniably symbolic about Bread Street Kitchen & Bar being here. Gordon Ramsay has built restaurants across the world, collected Michelin stars, television empires, hotels, bars, burger chains, and now a flagship restaurant suspended above London’s financial district that feels like the full-scale expression of the brand.
It’s also a genuinely enormous operation. Breakfast starts from 6.30 am for the City crowd below, before the restaurant shifts through lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, cocktails and late-night dining that runs until 3 am later in the week. There’s a dedicated sports bar with a 24-hour licence tucked inside the space, alongside live music and DJ sets. Is it a brunch spot? A bar? A power lunch? A date spot? Or a club night? Yes, and no. It is all.
It is excessive. It is theatrical. It is very Gordon Ramsay.
What we ordered
Breakfast, thankfully, doesn’t overcomplicate itself.
I ordered avocado toast with poached eggs, the kind of thing that can so easily become forgettable in the millennial noise of London’s breakfasts. But here, everything arrived exactly as you want it to when you’re this high above the ground. Thick sourdough with enough bite to hold its shape, avocado properly seasoned, eggs poached perfectly, a halo to all beneath.
Alongside it came warm pastries, still soft in the centre, cappuccinos brewed with the kind of precision you only notice when it’s missing elsewhere, and a mimosa that felt almost compulsory given the setting.
The breakfast menu itself moves between comfort and indulgence. Alongside staples, there are dishes like Lobster Benedict and stacks of hot cakes, all sitting alongside the wider all-day offering that eventually moves into steaks, tasting menus, cocktails and late-night dining.
Perhaps that is the point of this place.
Like stepping into some fantasy version of New York glamour. Blair Waldorf at the Empire State Building. Holly Golightly at Tiffany’s.
You’re not necessarily here for the most technically ambitious breakfast in London. You’re here because sipping coffee while watching the city stretch endlessly beneath you feels faintly ridiculous in the best possible way. Like stepping into some fantasy version of New York glamour. Blair Waldorf at the Empire State Building. Holly Golightly at Tiffany’s.
I genuinely don’t know how one returns to a Pret breakfast after this.
Not every meal needs intimacy or restraint or faint whispers. Sometimes you want scale and drama, like you’ve briefly stepped into a shinier, stranger version of London.
The verdict
Bread Street Kitchen & Bar at 22 Bishopsgate understands something important: sometimes dining out should feel transportive, should feel indulgent, feel absurd, like a treat.
Not every meal needs intimacy or restraint or faint whispers. Sometimes you want scale and drama, like you’ve briefly stepped into a shinier, stranger version of London. This restaurant delivers exactly that. Yes, the food is good. Yes, the service is polished. But the real luxury here is perspective. The reminder that London can still surprise you, even if you’ve lived here your entire life.
And as Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Global enters a new era — one that now stretches across more than 100 restaurants worldwide — this feels like the clearest statement yet of just how big the brand has become.
If anything, seeing St Paul’s look so tiny — seeing your own world look so small — while drinking a mimosa at 59 floors up is worth the trip alone.
I genuinely don’t know how one returns to a Pret breakfast after this.
Where: Floor 59, 22 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4AJ
Website: www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com
