Rooftop Bar

One of the most exciting aspects of a big city is to have plenty of choice for eating out. I realized that after being unable to invite my wife for Valentine day in Switzerland, I thought we could go to a nice place for dinner. By the way, even if Valentine is not that important for us, there were many more opportunities where we could just not get out. Hopefully my wife cooks like a cordon bleu (but rather the Vietnamese dishes). I decided she obviously deserved to take a rest away from the frying pan.

Tripadvisor

I did it the “old” way. Fired up Tripadvisor on my phone and checked out the pictures and ratings of nearby restaurants – Hà Nội is big, we did not want to ride a taxi for too long. We were not looking for a rooftop, but their pictures are always appealing. And the weather was perfect. We chose…

Lighthouse Sky Bar

Here it is. Very sad that the last comment on Tripadvisor is dated December 2019. It’s a boutique hotel at the entrance:

in front of the reception desk. There is a grand piano too.

Are we there yet?

No !! this is the indoor restaurant. Air conditioning and nice views, but we wanted the rooftop.

Rooftop

Cheers!

The cocktail menu is varied enough. There are mocktails with local fruits, well-known cocktails which you can find in such bars around the world and also the signature cocktails:

Food!!

I did not expect to eat such a good cuisine. The portions were also big.

lotus and shrimps salad (my son ate all the crisps)

pork with spicy salt. That was a killing!

We also ordered vegetable tempuras and French fries for the kids, which I had the honor and utter pleasure to finish.

Staff

Dedicated and smiling as we would expect in a luxury bar. We were told that they had to slash prices to cater to local customers since international travel has ground to a halt.

People

Until 9PM we were alone. At 9.15PM 4 to 5 girl groups came. It was quite enjoyable to witness the same script: wearing dresses, ordering no dish, just a drink, each one taking picture of the other, once towards the bar, then they switched places to be seen with the lit up city as a background. A lot of photo sharing in real time.

Frankly, I was happier to fully enjoy the meal, and share later.