#13 in Top 20 London for Business · ★★★★★
Shangri-La The Shard
Highest hotel in Western Europe, panorama suites, GŎNG bar — the dramatic-arrival meeting.
Highest hotel in Western Europe, panorama suites, GŎNG bar — the dramatic-arrival meeting.
"Highest hotel in Western Europe, panorama suites, GŎNG bar — the dramatic-arrival meeting."
Shangri-La The Shard occupies floors 34 through 52 of the Shard, Western Europe's tallest building. The hotel opened in 2014 and is the only London hotel where every guest room is at minimum thirty-four storeys above the ground. Two hundred and two rooms, every one with floor-to-ceiling glass windows facing the City of London or the Thames. The 'Iconic Suite' (52nd floor, 1,800 sqft, full panorama wraparound) is the most-cinematic working suite in any London hotel — for the high-stakes meeting where the view is the asset, this is the room. GŎNG (the 52nd-floor bar, the highest hotel bar in Western Europe) is the after-meeting space. TIN is the in-house Cantonese restaurant. The 35th-floor infinity pool overlooks the City and is the highest hotel pool in the country. Shangri-La The Shard is the right pick for the London business trip in the City and Canary Wharf clusters — the property is ten minutes by Tube to Liverpool Street, fifteen minutes to Canary Wharf, eight minutes to St Paul's. It is also the right pick for the dramatic-arrival meeting where the building itself is the conversational asset (the lift to the 35th-floor lobby produces the moment of the trip).
Iconic Suite (52nd floor, full panorama) or Shangri-La Suite (corner suite with City view).
GŎNG at 6pm is the after-meeting space — the southwest corner table has the Tower Bridge view at sunset. TIN restaurant for the business dinner; the corner table near the kitchen window has the most-cinematic view. The 35th-floor infinity pool is the morning recovery; the swim at 6.30am is empty until 7am.
Shangri-La The Shard sits within our broader Top 20 Hotels in London for Business list. It scored an aggregate 9.6/10 across the three editorial criteria — competitive against the field but, on business-specific factors, the angle above is what earned its rank. For the alternatives in the same London neighbourhood, see London Bridge, the Shard and adjacent. For a different city entirely, see the related lists below.
If you have already chosen the dates, our editor recommends booking the room twelve weeks ahead. The best suites with the right view orientation go first, and inventory for the popular months is quoted in months, not weeks. Suite-level rooms with private plunge pools or terraces — the ones that earn this rank — are typically the first to sell out.