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Bluu Bar Brasserie London Review
You don’t need me to tell you about Bluu’s appearance. It’s clear enough from the wordy description above [Bluu’s PR agents doing their finest]. You’re more interested in what it’s really like and whether you actually want to got there, right? Well, it’s safe to say that if you fall into one of the following categories then yes, you probably will:
(A) You’re a person of business and you’ve been to one of the other Bluu establishments in Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham or Hoxton and thought it’d be a pretty neat to hold a meeting there;
(B) You’re a shouter. One of those people who loves the sound of their own voice, eager to idle away your evenings in a post-work stupour at a venue that has hard floors and hard ceilings and thus increases your already-deafening voice by several hundred decibels;
(C) You live on either the Northern line or the Central line and can ill afford stretching to anything beyond the mad dash for the last tube in order to rush home to your misery. So you select a closer and mildly more convivial option.
If, however, you fall into one of the following categories....:
(A) everyone else in the entire world. With taste.
.... then you probably wont be all that bothered, to be honest.
What Wetherspoons does for blue collar workers, All Bar One does for lower middle management. And what All Bar One does for lower middle management, Bluu does for junior partners. It’s exactly the same, only with nicer tiles and wallpaper. Oh, and toilets doors that go right to the top AND bottom.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with the All Bar Nones of this world - without them we’d just be stuck with Pitcher & Piano - but unfortunately they, like Bluu, lack any real character. I mean, it looks nice enough, just not ‘Holy Moly!’ nice. The Bluu bigwigs have certainly spent a pretty penny to get it looking respectable. In fact, that penny was not just pretty, it was the Miss Universe of pennies three years in a row and only gave up being pretty to give the other pennies a chance. Although it’s essentially an aircraft hangar with all the plumbing and wiring still exposed, it does scrape through with a few credentials: it’s squeaky clean, it’s got a quaint sort of old style kitchen feel about it; and, it has plenty of natural light, even, oddly, in the basement.
On the drinks front, the usual San KroneFosteStrongNess draught beers are on offer and, unsurprisingly, the bottle options are much more enticing. However, the comprehensive book-sized drinks menu is filled with many different ways to get yourself into mischief including cheap-for-the-City champers and fish bowl cocktails for sharing (note: first one to suck down the most, wins. Or maybe doesn’t).
There is food, served up by a head chef called Jed - yes, that’s Jed the Head - which includes corn-fed poultry locally sourced from Lancashire (?) and breakfasts with words like black pudding, kippers or lobster omelette oozing across the menu. There’s also a ‘Beast of the Day’ sacrifice and a thorough range of desserts for all those girth-widening chompers amongst you.
My advice to you, if you really have to go: don’t conduct a meeting there. Businessman says ‘I wouldn’t have a meeting here’. How do I know this? Because I asked a real-life businessman, that’s how.
Christian Rose-Day (13 08 2008)
Bluu Bar Brasserie London Description
Occupying two floors of a six-storey Grade II listed building which neighbours The Bank of England, Macaulay Sinclair have created an impressive space with Bluu Bar Brasserie - opened over the summer of 2008.
Macaulay Sinclair ensured a brasserie that engages with the pin striped set by opting for quality, durable pieces that relax with age such as upright, traditional leather upholstered chairs and armchairs. Behind the site’s traditional pewter bar counter and bespoke black cast concrete panels stands a backbar bathed in golden light and centrepieced by an opulent champagne and wine cabinet. Faceted smoked mirrors and crumpled etched copper panels angle out above. Elsewhere, atmospheric pools of light direct onto robust oak tables and reclaimed French railway oak flooring while suspended rows of minimal light fittings discreetly maximise ceiling height and airy, natural luminosity.
bluu Moorgate’s bar area tables feature lamps, newspaper racks, umbrella rails and coat hooks which encourage informal grouping as does a secluded ‘party table’ resplendent with central champagne ice bucket and large soft pendent light fittings. With chequered floor tiles, brick bonded bevelled edge walls tiles, Belfast ceramic sinks and blocky urinals, restrooms are a contemporary take on traditional London pub. On the site’s lower floor, a white-tiled open cellar, with polished stainless steel fixings and self-correcting kegs, ensures continued engagement with bluu Moorgate’s offering.
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