Today Babylon goes to infinity and beyond to celebrate one of the funkiest days of the year, Space Day! To celebrate, we’ve teamed up with our sister company Virgin Galactic to showcase a model of their ‘Spaceship 1’ in the restaurant and we’ve also put together a special menu to satisfy your galactic appetites, and take a giant leap into your taste buds.

For lift-off, our in-house astronauts (or chefs as we call them) have offered some tasty starters including a smooth Cauliflower and Berkswell Velouté, or a delivishly Crispy Pork Belly, with a hint of sweet chilli and pineapple. During the main part of your journey, you might not experience zero gravity but you could encounter a delicious Halibut Fillet, garnished with squid (it kind of looks like an alien before we serve it!), lemon pickle potatoes and pine nut salsa, or for something more meaty we have the slow Braised Shoulder of Cornish Lamb, a melt in the mouth delight, served with potato gnocchi baby onions. For something a little different (and little green), the Crushed Pea and Mint Ravioli with fresh goats curd may set you for the perfect landing. And speaking of landing, the desserts go way beyond the stars, with a dark (side of the moon) Chocolate Fondant, with a gooey liquid centre and ginger cornetto or indulge in an Apple and Vanilla Pot, mmm…… Read More

It’s that time of year again, spring has finally sprung! The sun is shining, birds are singing and it’s almost time to “crack” out those chocolate Easter eggs and here at Babylon, we are just as excited.

For one we’re looking forward to our big Easter Sunday roast… we’ve organised a children’s magician for the day, a chocolate bunny hunt on the terrace (not for the adults!) and in addition to Chef’s yummy roast lunches we’ve created three egg-stra special, super indulgent and deliciously devilish chocolate martinis to enjoy over the long weekend. Served in edible chocolate eggs and incorporating high quality Gabriel Boudier fruit liqueurs to create Milk Chocolate, Chocolate Orange and Mint Chocolate offerings for you to enjoy on our terrace overlooking sunny London-town… egg-strordinary! (last egg joke, I promise!).
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It’s only February and yet it feels like summer’s just around the corner (except for the freezing weather). As I’ve learnt so far from my time here at Babylon, there is never a ‘quiet’ period and definitely no rest for the wicked. Our winter cocktail menu is keeping us busy and our warming specials are keeping our guests’ body temperatures above 0°. There is nothing quite like sitting rugged up next to a roaring fire as a bartender stands less than a foot away ripping up a roaring blue blazer for you. Try also our hearty Hot Buttered Rum, Rush Rum Punch and Pumpkin Pie cocktails to warm your cockles.

Coming up at the end of February is London Fashion week which is a fantastic opportunity for us to model some designer based drinks and play around with some avant-garde presentation techniques. Come and try out our:

Bur-berry sour (a dolled up version of a classic sour with fresh berries), LBD (black velvety champagne with blackberries, Sipsmiths gin and Violette liqueur) and Brandy Alexander McQueen (fig infused cognac and creamy goodness).

Speaking of avant-garde, this week I feel like I’m back at Christmas eve as I excitedly and restlessly await delivery of my first batch of Liquid Nitrogen! Watch this space… and watch your drinks for floating frozen appendages.

I almost forgot, (yes I’ve been busy) Valentine’s day is nearly upon us! We’ll be playing dinners hosts to smitten love-birds on the night who are joining us for our special Valentine’s day package…you can click here if you want to know more!

Finally I wanted to share with everyone that we’ve recently teamed up with the Sustainable Restaurant Association to show our ongoing commitment to sustainability. For more information click here.

Speak soon,

Max

January seems to be moving very fast with plenty going on at Babylon!  Since we opened on the 7th of the month it’s been great to see not everyone’s sticking to their New Year ‘live healthy’ resolutions…and with our new ‘retox – not detox’ food and cocktail menu, designed to keep the taste buds alive after the over indulgent Christmas period, we can see why!

We also kicked off the year with a Master Chef challenge between The Roof Gardens staff. 12 people were chosen at random to cook lunch for the rest of the staff over the space of four days. Read More

The Christmas cobbler cocktail

I am loving the Christmas cheer that has taken over Babylon at the moment – we’ve already had tons of people in for their fill of our delicious Christmas lunches and dinners, and our Christmas tree is looking truly grand (if I do say so myself).

Behind the Babylon bar our mixologists have come up with some very cool festive cocktails, which if you haven’t yet tasted you should! The first is the Christmas cobbler. It uses fresh winter berries, fortified Shiraz, Grand Marnier, freshly squeezed orange juice, topped with crushed ice and orange zest garnish. The second one, is the festive julep, which is our own infused walnut, raisin and chocolate Woodford Reserve Bourbon, with mint and sugar.

We’re also gearing up for a FABULOUS New Year’s Eve here at Babylon…the highlight of which will probably be the array of spectacular firework displays that can be seen from the terrace as we ring in 2012! Read More

Blood Clot and Sand cocktail

It’s Max here from behind the bar!

I love this time of the year… when I was a wee nipper I was obsessed with vampires. No surprise then that I jumped at the chance to play with gory effects on a cocktail.

Based on a classic Blood and Sand cocktail, this is my Blood Clot and Sand cocktail. It includes Bourbon whisky, red vermouth, homemade black cherry liquor and fresh orange juice shaken with a bit of egg white. Garnished with a blood clot brulee and orange bitter blood splatter! Read More

Richard welcomes everyone to the Stars of the Year Awards

Every year the Virgin Group as a whole celebrates some of its best people at the ‘Stars of the Year’ awards ceremony, and at this year’s event two of Virgin Limited Edition’s own stars won the top award in the community category. Babylon Restaurant Manager Peter Avis and Special Projects Manager Tarn Breedveld jointly took the top prize for ‘community’, in recognition of the work they do in their respective roles.  The event was hosted by Sir Richard Branson, accompanied by his daughter Holly and mother Eve at The Roof Gardens on 20th September. Read More