The Garden Room

Address: The Lanesborough Hotel , Hyde Park Corner, London, SW1X 7TA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7259 5599
Style: Cigar bar
Established: 2009

Review

The Lanesborough's secret garden is an outdoor, heated area just below street level that's legal for smoking. Only when you are in the garden would you realise it was there - walking by on the street its clientele is totally hidden from the masses. Quite right too.

Actually, the space is fairly well hidden inside too: reached from the basement, down a long, unsigned corridor. Enter through electric glass doors, slightly incongruous with the pomp and grandeur of the rest of the hotel.

There's a large humidor with lockers for wealthy regulars in which to keep their Cohibas and Monte Christos, some of them pre-Castro and costing up to £1,000 a pop, and to complement them is a wide range of aged spirits, in particular with whiskies listed by region. You can have many of the same drinks as the Library Bar, but there's also a wider range of champagne, with plenty of Louis Roederer expressions. Note the £25 minimum spend per person - that alone will keep the riff raff out.