Great first floor bar on Clapham High Street with glass walls overlooking the hoi-polloi below. The feel of the place is spacious, with high ceilings, the afore-mentioned glass walls giving great light and depth to the place, and it never seems to get too crowded. The drinks are a pretty standard selection, and about what you’d expect to pay in a slightly ‘cool’ place in Clapham.

Also, the bar is so high that you feel like a hobbit at all times, peering up at the beer taps as though you’ve just learnt to walk, the staff seeming like giants among men. I like it. Some people aren’t so sure.

Exceptional cocktails, reasonably priced. The place looks awesome, very New York. Really helpful staff too.

Went in on Monday night, greeted at the door by a very smiley waitress who looked after us all evening, and recommended some delicious cocktails, which were only a fiver! Will be back again soon.

Have to say I loved the place. Went in for dinner on Saturday. Had the mussels to start which were delicious, and then had one of the fattest fillet steaks I can remember, which was cooked to perfection. The house red wine was great quality for the price. We then started to have a few cocktails, and one thing led to another. I’m getting too old for nights that good. Lovely waitresses too, really smiley and helpful.

A very mediocre 3*s. People below have been saying Clapham has been crying out for this kind of thing. REALLY!? Call me a traditionalist, but this place is trying to be way too cool for school. Ok, they do good cocktails and the staff were quite friendly, it’s just a bit soulless.

Great place. Clapham was crying out for this. Nice crowd, cool music, great drinks, friendly staff.

All Front.
Looks great.
Service appalling.
Wouldn’t waste my money,
far better places to go within a 5 min walk.

They should get their act together & quick…........

Samuel

at last a cool funky bar in clapham. love the food!

I had heard a great deal about The Loft and it had been described to me as being full of cheap brown leather sofas and breeze-block walls, huge, airy space decorated more in the style of the nineties. My close friends also warned me this restaurant/cocktail bar is more than busy on Friday and Saturday night crammed full of people form all over London as well as many locals. So I thought in order to avoid the crowds I would take my mates and treat them to a hungover Sunday brunch which I heard was really good. What better way to kick-start the whole event than to launch it with some stylish cocktails. I am rather glad I chose this intrepid method because The Loft's real strength lies in its clearly labelled innovative 26-page drinks list and trust me this bar takes getting smashed very seriously.
My peachy Fig Leaf Surprise blended stewed rhubarb and Earl Grey tea sugar syrup with passionfruit vodka tasted divine. The cocktails are good value at £6.80.
As for my Breakfast Martini (well, it was early in the day): why can't every day start with a zingy mix of marmalade and gin? After that we could have happily eaten anything – but I found the food less tempting.
I went for the Welsh rarebit (£4.50) looked very unappetising but once I had happilytaken one bite the taste was completely different.. The Neal's Yard cheese was soft, the accompanying grapes firm and succulent and the bread super fluffy. Eggs Florentine (£4.90) did float in on an algae-like puddle, but the yolks were the deepest free-range yellow.
A (very) full veggie English (£6.75) topped off with mighty fine tomato and basil sausages, and kedgeree with lentils and peppers (£6) were from similarly high quality ingredients.
The Loft's show and finesse may be all in the cocktails, but its well-priced food is perfect too for some appetizing inexpensive fills. So all in all I would say I had mixed reaction to it all.

hmmm, I persuaded my housemate try this place out the other day, we were a bit wary given that we couldn't actually eye it up without climbing the stairs to get in...

It is one of these places you'd expect in Clapham, it is trying hard to be trendy and to be honest with you I think I quite like it, the bar staff were friendly and the seats were bloody comfortable, I could have stayed there for hours! There is a side resteraunt area which looks decent and worth trying out.

But it was quieter than that squeaky woman from police academy when I was there and given how long and thin it is I can only imagine it may be a nightmare when really busy but will give it another go....

One thing it is worth remembering is, no matter how cool you think you are sitting in this place trying to be the daddy with your trendy beanie and funky cocktail, you are basically sitting 5 feet above some old dear buying her spam and Daily Mail....

I was somewhat taken aback when my housemate suggested we go to the new Loft bar on Clapham high street. From the outside it reminds me of a vodka revolution or All bar one. A bit characterless and overpriced. I was right to some extent. I guess there are some good and bad things about this latest addition to the high street.

Good things - Spacious, attentive staff, great selection of cocktails and comfortable seats.

Bad things - The only thing they seem to have on tap is peroni (probably about 12 different taps with peroni on), limted bar snack menu (steak sandwich looked like the best bet of the 5 snack options) and the general atmosphere is a bit too cool for school. Probably quite good for a date but not somewhere you want to be drinking with your housemate on a sunday night.