18th Floor restaurant opens above Stratford's Gantry hotel
East Coast Concepts and D3 Collective open a steak-and-seafood dining room eighteen storeys above east London, with a wine list that runs from Argentina to Champagne.
18th Floor restaurant and bar opens on 29 October above The Gantry hotel in Stratford, east London, pairing a dining room with open-air terraces built around grilled meat and seafood.
The venue sits 18 storeys above Celebration Avenue, opposite Stratford International station, inside the Hilton Curio Collection hotel that opened in 2021 with its top floor earmarked for a bar and restaurant from the start. Five years on, the space finally has an operator and a date. For context on the city's dining scene, see our list of the best restaurants in London.
East Coast Concepts, which runs the Victors and Neighbourhood brands across six UK sites, is running 18th Floor restaurant alongside D3 Collective, the group led by Des Gunewardena. D3's other addresses include Engel and Jang at the Royal Exchange in the City of London and Pepperbird and Idalia at Pillar Hall in Olympia, west London.
Eighteen floors is easy to sell on opening night; keeping the room full in February is the harder trick.
18th Floor's menu: steaks built for sharing
The menu centres on whole grilled Scottish lobster and a run of steaks: fillet and New York strip alongside cuts meant for the table rather than one plate — a 900g tomahawk, a 900g porterhouse and a 650g côte de boeuf. The kitchen is pitching the room at groups, not a quick steak dinner before a show.
Weekends add DJs and live musicians to the dining room, pushing the space toward late drinking as much as dinner — a familiar move for rooftop openings trying to fill tables once the kitchen stops taking orders.
A wine list reaching past London
The list was built by D3 head sommelier Giuseppe Lacona, whose CV includes Coq d'Argent and Petrus under Gordon Ramsay. It leans on Argentine malbec, Tuscan reds, Bordeaux and Napa Valley, backed by an extensive champagne selection — a map closer to a steakhouse than a strictly British list, matching the menu it sits alongside. Diners who want the view without the main event can order from the bar alone, on either the covered dining room or the open terraces.
For wine by the glass done differently, The Savoy's reopened Beaufort Wine Bar is a short ride west; for another steak-led room with its own counter-dining spin, there's Yukon steakhouse's take on the format.
The Gantry's top floor was promised as a sky bar when the hotel opened in 2021. It now has a kitchen, a name and a date — the test is whether the view still pulls a table once the autumn skyline turns to winter rain.
