Bar Review Skylounge

Ben Johnson discovers that travelling to the 13th floor can be unlucky for some

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Bar Review: Skylounge

The City Inn at Granary Wharf opened earlier in the year to much fanfare, not just because one of Europe’s top hoteliers had finally decided to grace our shores with their business class etiquette, but also because of their well worn tradition of providing top bars and sleek, stylish eateries.

The Skylounge is a coup for Leeds, and City Inn, providing the sort of picturesque views that only the unique Leeds skyline of today can provide. Step out onto the huge balcony veranda and soak up a breathtaking view of south Leeds, with the imposing monolith of Bridgewater Place being the main focus of your gaze (at night time, the 32-storey building lights up the night with multicoloured neon LEDs), with Clarence Dock and the Royal Armouries visible to your left and Elland Road on your right. From this high up, you can see all of Holbeck, Beeston and Middleton Park in the distance, heck, it seems like you could see Wakefield on a clear day. It’s a sprawling, bustling, industrial sight, and one that best reflects the careful balance between commerce and nature which our city has done so well to maintain over centuries of development.

The more familiar sights of Leeds central are visible from the other side, but you’ll have to actually go inside the bar to see this, which is unavoidable, unfortunately. The lift even delivers you straight into the bar area, which acts as a fabulous entry to any destination, particularly when juxtaposed with the quiet, beige coloured monotony of the 12 floors below it. Like the identikit rooms, the bar is functional, formulaic, and stylish in the same way as a DFS commercial. Over a soundtrack of brand approved company-issue funky house, you half expect Martin Kemp to be sprawled out on the spacious two-seaters offering 30% off. On a busy Friday night, the clientele are mostly bankers letting their hair down by removing their ties and digging into champagne cocktails and bottles of Peroni. There’s no draught beer here, but there is a fantastic selection of wine and cocktails that could dramatically influence the state of your finances.

It’s a bar in a hotel, then, and as such, it scores very little in the charm stakes. The venue never quite shakes the corporate vibe, to the point where you might as well be drinking in the office. But whereas you might overlook the in house bar at, say, the Marriott or Hilton, the City Inn has a fabulously exploited feature with its prime location and rooftop views. It’s a view to die for, particularly at night time when the true urban reality of our city is revealed in all of its majesty. The bar will serve the city residents well when the Granary Wharf apartments are fully occupied and when the influx of corporate clients visit the City Inn in their droves, but with the Skylounge, it’s what’s on the outside that counts.

Posted on Tuesday 6th October 2009

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