Kanaloa

This was the worst "tiki" bar I've ever been to. Took a look at the menu, didn't see anything that looked like a traditional cocktail; couldn't stand the club music either. We didn't even stay after we were lei'd. - I don't understand how this is on Critiki.

100% a nightclub with tiki decorations and not a tiki bar. Disappointed.

The interior is amazing. But the service is far from Tiki...
I was in London for work and had a meeting at 6pm. Got in the bar at opening time, 4h45. Ordered a drink for the Happy Hour list. Manager came in and told me - when the drink was ready - I had to pay full price. "HH only starts at 5." Mahalo!

Located in the heart of the sterile, steel and glass streets of London's financial district is this little bar. Think about the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he refused to move his rabbit hole when they wanted to build a highway. Except this is clearly in a modern building. Although largely empty when we arrived most of the tables were reserved, we ended up in what I'd consider a staircase landing. Mostly open floor space for the party crowd. The decor and the drinks were largely forgettable. Zero Tiki vibe, can't really recommend it.

Boilerplate London Tiki Bar Comment: (you'll see this on all my reviews from London so if you've read it once you can skip over it). All the tiki bars in London are very thinly tiki themed, under their skin they are all just after 9pm party bars. It should be noted that all our visits were before that, about 6pm. None of them played any music that came close to exotica, cocktail, surf.... They all had very vodka forward cocktail menus and even though there were recognizable drink names they were generally void of any rum. Our general process for cocktail evaluation is for us to try a couple of their signature drinks and then order a simple Havana Club Daiquiri and a MaiTai. None of the London menus had a traditional MaiTai or Daiquiri listed. There are probably exceptions to this rule but in general pubs are for boys and all other types of bars are for girls. The burlesque club and tiki bars we visited had pretty much exclusive customer base of women and "Hen Parties", just a drinking culture thing here in London I assume.

We visited last week. The place looks terrific -- plenty of tikis and old-school décor. The lighting and drinks menu are both good. The drinks themselves are pretty good, and nicely presented (one came in a real coconut with a lit sparkler).

The food is mediocre, a combination of bar food and some Thai specialties (which I might have counted as a nod to pan-Asian tikiness, except I saw that same combination of burgers and Thai food in our hotel's non-tiki restaurant -- it seems to be popular in London).

The music is modern club music, and the crowd is mostly young club-goers, not tikiphiles. The staff was very welcoming and gave us both leis (we were the only ones in the place wearing them).