L'Anima (Closed)

Address: 1 Snowden Street, London, EC2A 2DQ, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 207 422 7000
Website: view L'Anima (Closed)’s website
Door: Make reservation
Style: Restaurant bar
Food: Set menu

Review

L'Anima, by award winning Chef Francesco Mazzei, is a gold-fish bowl of a venue, with glass walls enclosing you – and exposing you to passers-by. The bar is to the right, the restaurant to the left – again separated by glass walls. A beautiful, backlit, marble-fronted bar is a real signature piece, with waiters and bar staff gliding in between a smattering of high tables and chairs.

Like the food menu next door, the bar menu is seasonally influenced, with bellinis and long drinks a particular speciality – rhubarb bellinis say, or pineapple and sage with gin – and many with Italian twists, for example with limoncello and camomile tea or vodka with balsamic vodka and strawberries.

As much as you sense this desires to be seen as a standalone bar in its own right, it ultimately stills feels like a holding bar for the rather more exciting restaurant proper (though you can eat in the bar too), the glass walls serving to make you envious of the diners you can see, the reflections of their cutlery dancing playfully on the ceiling.