Last week we had the great privilege of heading to the top floor rotating restaurant of the BT Tower to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary with a seven- course tasting menu.
This was a dream come true for me. Since I was a child I have been captivated by this incredible London landmark and fascinated by the concept of a 60’s/70’s rotating restaurant suspended above London on the 34th floor. A setting that conjures images of Abigail’s party, the 189m tower opened in 1965 and I longed to reach the top to see what the tallest tower in London and in the UK (until 1980) was all about.
There was a time when people would race up the stairs to the top but it had been a long day and I was relieved to be taking the lift. It goes so fast your ears pop – seven metres every second, twenty seconds in all to reach the top.
It is spectacular and I feel there’s never been a better time to see London’s skyline standing from the shard of the 60’s! As the Shard is now, the BT Tower was groundbreaking in its time. It cost £2 ½ million to build compared with £435 million for the Shard nearly fifty years later.
The food and service created by Dan Perea was superb and I imagine quite different from the original cuisine offered by Butlin’s in the 70’s!
London looked magical and despite controversy over the rise of the skyscrapers, the skyline of London would have looked decidedly uninteresting without them.
As the night fell they only became more exciting as beacons of light rose into the sky.
