Get on down, way up high

10 April 2012

High above the streets of Kensington, six floors up, there's a club unlike any other in the capital. Palm trees, flamingos and an acre and a half of manicured gardens, the Roof Gardens is something a bit different.

I'd known about the place for years, but never actually been - I had assumed that since it was a member's club, I'd never get into this enchanted-sounding place.

Then I heard it had been relaunched after a huge facelift this summer, and that Sienna Miller, Jade Jagger, Jackson Scott and a gaggle of models - including regular Elle Macpherson - have all passed through its doors since then.

And when I discovered that if you book a table for dinner at the restaurant, Babylon, or for the outdoor barbecue in summer, you can skip past the doormen and the velvet rope, I decided it was high time I ventured into the Gardens.

You enter through a rather unobtrusive door under a sign you could easily miss. Whizzing up in the lift to the sixth floor, atop what was once the old Derry & Toms department store, directly above High Street Kensington Tube station, we were ushered through the slick white and silver club to a red-brick, creeper-covered courtyard.

There we started our evening with a Tudor Barbecue. No, not a Henry VIII-style banquet of suckling pig and wild boar, but a gourmet feast that takes place every weekend in the Tudor Courtyard.

The setting is incredible. The Roof Gardens cover one-and-a-half themed acres: The Spanish Garden, based on the one in Granada's Alhambra Palace, The Tudor Courtyard Garden and The English Woodland Garden, with fully mature trees, some of which have been growing since the Roof Gardens first opened in 1938.

Up there, the sound of traffic is muffled by the foliage. It's hard to believe you're actually six stories above central London and not in a secluded country garden.

To add to the rather surreal feel of the place, they even have a couple of flamingos, called Bill and Ben, strutting about, as well a mandarin duck named Jackie Chan. For some reason we found this screamingly funny. Before we dived into the buffet - which smelled divine - we ordered hibiscus champagne cocktails at £9.50 each. Delicious.

Our air of quiet sophistication was, however, somewhat marred by the late arrival of Sophie, who, on being passed her cocktail, asked nervously whether there was a prawn in her champagne flute.

"No madam," explained the waiter, arching an eyebrow, "that would be a raspberry-scented hibiscus blossom." We were further marked out as plebs by our determination to make the most of the three-course, all-you-can eat barbie.

At £55 per head it wasn't cheap, so we wanted to get our money's worth. And we did: we started on baba ganoush, baby artichokes, and piquillo peppers stuffed with brie, feta and oregano, followed by tiger prawns, chermoula lamb koftas and Cumberland sausages.

If you do the maths it doesn't work out as expensive as it might at first seem, considering there's no fee to enter the club afterwards.

After supper, and fortified by a few more cocktails, we made our way inside, where it's all pleasingly bling thanks to the multi-million-pound revamp. The main bar is lit by a series of glittering crystal chandeliers, leading to a walnut dancefloor, surrounded by squishy chairs.

Then we managed to blag our way into girly heaven: the VIP "Moo Room", papered with pink, flocked wallpaper - so lurid I have to track it down for my bathroom - and scattered with cowhide pouffes, with a view out to the gardens and the pair of slightly grumpy-looking flamingos. It's a truly glitzy place.

The mostly late-twenties crowd was clearly rather monied and quite dressed up - lots of smart shoes, jackets and LBDs - very Euro, and thickly peppered with banker-lawyer types. I was glad I'd worn my chain-mail neckerchief to add a glamorous touch to my otherwise rather scruffy outfit.

Later, after the food had been cleared away, the Tudor Courtyard became another open-air VIP area (again we managed to sneak in - the staff there are very obliging).

We spent lots of time gossiping and making friends with the smokers there. This was a smokers' paradise: the vast amount of space is a godsend for nicotine-heads as the Roof Gardens' idyllic surroundings are a huge contrast to the makeshift cages provided by some clubs. On our merry midnight rambles through the foliage we came across quite a few couples getting romantic by moonlight, much to our amusement. None of our group got lucky, sadly - we were too busy cackling and yapping and dancing to notice the hot boys, although reportedly there are plenty who go there.

Still, we loved shimmying to Kelis, Rihanna - all the stuff you want to dance to when you're half-drunk, but which most DJs are too cool to play.

Kanye West's Gold Digger got us all singing along - and reminded my friend Deborah of the only other time she'd visited the Roof Gardens, when she'd watched with horror as Sir Richard Branson - who actually owns the place - boogied on down, dad-style, to the same song, and revealed he also knew all the words.

Then after a few more hours dancing - the club closes at 3am - we stumbled out of the Moo Room and into our homeward-bound taxis, reeling from what had been the ultimate night on the (roof) tiles.

The Roof Gardens, 99 Kensington High Street (entrance on Derry Street), W8; 020 7937 7994, roofgardens.com

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