When you’re in a restaurant, there’s nothing worse than being a little short…
…when the bill comes. Your height, however, is of absolutely no consequence. But there is nevertheless a certain satisfaction to being in a bar or restaurants where – like in plane seats, limbo competitions, or co-starring roles in Tom Cruise movies – being a few inches shy of the average is actually a good thing.
Welcome to the best bars and restaurants for short people…
This elegant Fitzrovia spot has a lovely pan-Asian restaurant on its ground floor, but it’s the sleek looking cocktail bar beneath it you’re interested in – they have a sunken bar, meaning that the bartenders stand about two feet below floor height, ostensibly so they they’re still at eye level when you’re sitting down. You can just lean against the bar. Presto.
A crepuscular, subterranean, semi-circular cave carved from bedrock and lit by candle light, Gordon’s is the sort of place that you can escape underground and tuck yourself away in a corner to sample an award-winning wine list of unsuspectingly modern drops from both the classic regions of France to South America and beyond…
Koi is apparently Kensington’s longest standing Japanese restaurant (open since 1997, which seems strangely recent), and the food is pretty great – but it’s the seating arrangement you’re here for. Everyone sits in traditional, cross-legged style on the floor, wiping out the height advantage of anyone taller than you.
What, short people don’t like good food?
The gorgeously mismatched furniture in this gastropub – Britain’s first, no less – means you can score a higher seat than your buddies on the sly. And while you’re sitting there, you can check the blackboard for today’s menu (it changed from hour to hour) and get one of the finest pub meals in the city.
This traditional, Bavarian-style bierkeller has a fun, vibrant kind of ‘Oktoberfest all year round’ vibe to it. And that means that they serve huge 1 liter steins of beer. And that means that – due to your short stature – you’re getting a proportionally better deal than those tall suckers.
There’s a literal yellow brick road running through it, which makes this South Kensington, museum-adjacent traditional English restaurant something of a spiritual home. It’s not recommended for the food, however.
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