Bar number One: Bar Elba
I wanted to pop a quick blog post up, a bit similar to my last one admittedly, but being a London student I love finding cute new bars for that dreaded moment when friends come up to visit and say "take us to somewhere COOL, you know like a rooftop bar or something really LONDON" and all you can think of is the pub down the road from uni that you drag yourself to after an all nighter deadline to celebrate making it through the night. So when my beautiful cousins suggested a girly meet up day, I actually did my research this time and found out about Bar Elba which was just around the corner from Waterloo, perfect for drinks after a stroll down Southbank.
We rocked up at around 5pm which unknown to us was the start of happy hour, which came as a very happy little surprise but quite a dangerous one aha! We were also one of the first to turn up so managed to bag ourselves the 'Instagram wall' before everyone came flooding in. The bar itself spanned the whole way around the roof so had so much space and a 360 view of the city, much bigger than it looked on all the photos. I also loved the relaxed and tropical vibe that they had going, it was really fun without feeling expensive or snooty as some of the themed bars sometimes do. We came along for day time drinking which was lovely in the evening sunshine but it would have been equally as cute with a group for an evening visit with the bench style tables and fairy lights, will definitely be making a return trip!
As we were leaving we heard one of the bar men mention about Tonight Josephine which was the bar that we had originally wanted to go to, and explain that it was actually Bar Elba's sister bar just downstairs, with a fun little backstory about Napoleon and Wife Josephine, with Bar Elba being Napoleon's bar and downstairs being Josephine's. As it was still quite early in the evening the lovely hosts managed to squeeze us into an unbooked slot for downstairs so our day drinking
Bar number Two: Tonight Josephine
Turns out Tonight Josephine is Bar Elba's much sassier, girl power themed sister, and it was fab. Admittedly a lot smaller than the last bar but they packed a lot into this little underground bar, and even more neon! If Missguided was a bar, this is what it would look like, head to toe pink, holographic walls, flower hanging ceilings, girl power plastered over the toilet walls, along with Lindsay Lohan and Justin Bieber's mugshots. Iconic. I would say that the highlight was the Parma Violet flavoured cocktail which tasted exactly like it, we loved it so much that the bar man ended up giving us Parma Violets with every cocktail we ordered, amazing!
In short, if you are looking for a girly, pink themed bar with plenty of photo opportunities, both of these are perfect, although I would suggest booking ahead especially for Tonight Josephine, as I am sure it will get very busy once these neon signs start spreading across The Gram! OH and happy hour is between 5-7pm, thank me later!
Dress: Missguided
https://www.missguided.co.uk/silky-wrap-dress-cobalt-blue
Tara-Jade x
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