Cool Place of the Day: Boundary Rooftop Bar & Restaurant, Shoreditch, London

Every day, a new place to discover or explore, from coolplaces.co.uk

A sculpted garden with olive and bay trees

Things are hotting up, and this rather glamorous London rooftop bar and restaurant is just the place to make the most of the sunny weather, situated in a former printworks in the heart of Shoreditch but with a feel that’s more midtown Manhattan than East London.

It’s a lovely place to a place to sip cocktails as you watch the sun set over the City – in fact the 360-degree view takes in Canary Wharf, the Barbican, the Gherkin and most of the weirdly-shaped, quirkily-named skyscrapers that have sprung up around these parts in recent years. The bar is centred round an open fire and a sculpted garden with olive and bay trees; Welsh blankets keep you warm as the evening wears on.

They serve an all-day Mediterranean-style food menu that isn’t cheap but features great seafood and grilled steaks and fish, and to be honest there aren’t many better places in town to enjoy an oyster or six (maybe on one of their good-value ‘Seafood Sundays’).

An East London outpost of the Conran empire, the Rooftop is also part of a super-chic 12-room boutique hotel, and downstairs hosts a deli and café – the Albion – that specialises in British food and does legendary ‘late suppers’ for night owls (Thurs–Sun).

Martin Dunford is Publisher of Cool Places, a new website from the creators of Rough Guides and Cool Camping, suggesting the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop in Britain (coolplaces.co.uk)