There's a magical Arctic experience hidden away behind the busy shopping hell of Regent Street. The build up to going inside is part of the fun.
First, you raise your body temperature by a few valuable degrees in the normal, heated Below Zero bar downstairs, which serves creative fresh fruity cocktails such as a scrummy apple and blackberry crumble concoction.
Everyone is allocated a 40 minute time slot so when your time comes they give you space-age silver cloaks, thick gloves and snow boots and you go into the Ice Bar. Inside it's minus five degrees and everything inside is made from clear crystal ice from Sweden – the walls, the bar, the tables and the chunky glasses, which you slurp simple but super-strong vodka cocktails from. Drinking doesn't get more refreshing than this.
An appropriately frosty reception greeted us when we visited this bar. We were told in charmless, clipped tones (accompanied by a forced smile that resembled a pensioner passing a kidney stone) that we were welcome to pay £15 for 25 minutes in the ice bar. This included a drink and, who knows, the brevity of the allotted time may have been down to the human body’s inability to tolerate such freezing conditions for more than 30 minutes. However, at over 60p a minute and with the kind of welcome usually reserved for an STD, this didn't seem like a pleasant place in which to linger. It gave off the distinct impression of being the sort of establishment where, if your face fitted, nothing would have been too much trouble. Sporting what were obviously ill-fitting faces, we decided against crossing the hard-faced “greeter’s” palm with silver and left with, self-respect, if not quite dignity, intact.
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