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Eurostar reopens its cocktail bars – and Rhys names a drink!

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Eurostar reopened the cocktail bars in its London and Paris lounges this week, as well as bringing back its lounge canape collection. Both bars had been closed since the pandemic broke out although the lounges themselves have been open for some time.

The bars will be open for longer. From 6am to noon, Monday to Friday, they will operate as smoothie bars. From 3pm, the cocktail service begins which runs until the last train departs.

Rhys and I went down to the St Pancras lounge on Tuesday night to celebrate, and Rhys won an unusual competition – he got to name a cocktail!

Eurostar London St Pancras lounge cocktail bar

A new drink, blending vodka with orgeat, amaretto, absinthe, egg white and fresh lemon, has been added to the cocktail menu but was in need of a name. The assembled guests were asked for suggestions and Rhys won, with ‘Snow Bird’.

The name was used in the official press release for the reopening which was sent out yesterday, so they were serious about using it.

Rhys will be celebrating his win by drinking his prize of Toujours 21, Eurostar’s very own gin. (He is also trying to get a Eurostar ticket thrown in, as he has never actually been on it!) This comprises ‘a delightful fusion of French botanicals and honey from the Kent countryside.

You can see Rhys with his prize in the first picture above, and immediately above is Raymond Blanc modelling the gin – which he used to design his own signature Eurostar cocktails – with our very own Anika back in 2017.

In terms of service levels, it was great to hear that Eurostar will be back to 15 daily services to Paris from mid-May (it is already back to 13). This is a step change from when I last travelled in November. There will also be seven daily services to Brussels and three daily services to Amsterdam. A fourth daily Amsterdam service is being pencilled in for the Autumn.


How to get Club Eurostar points and lounge access from UK credit cards

How to get Club Eurostar points and lounge access from UK credit cards (November 2024)

Club Eurostar does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Club Eurostar points by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

Membership Rewards points convert at 15:1 into Club Eurostar points.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, so you will get the equivalent of 1 Club Eurostar point for every £15 you spend.

American Express Platinum comes with a great Eurostar benefit – Eurostar lounge access!  

You can enter any Eurostar lounge, irrespective of your ticket type, simply by showing The Platinum Card at the desk.  No guests are allowed but you can get entry for your partner by issuing them with a free supplementary Amex Platinum card on your account.

Comments (30)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Genghis says:

    The Gare du Nord cocktail bar was open at least from the start of March as they made me a mojito.

    • Rob says:

      Yes it has been open for a while but they kept it quiet whilst London reopened.

  • Mark says:

    Glad to hear the cocktail/smoothie bar will be open when we go next week. Just to check to get in with Amex Plat do you still just show the card at the door?

    • Rich says:

      Yep

      • Entitled says:

        I presume they swipe it to determine that it is not a cancelled card?

        • Rui N. says:

          Unless that changed, they did not.

          • lumma says:

            I saw a company advertising recently that they can make your regular bank card look like a centurion card for about £70.

            How closely do they look at the cards?

        • Rob says:

          Swipe it on what?! You can’t buy anything in the lounge. They have no card readers.

  • Nick says:

    You only mention Mon-Fri, does that mean it’s not open at all at weekends?

    • Rob says:

      No smoothies at the weekend, not sure about evening cocktails.

  • Jek says:

    We have been in the Paris lounge on Tuesday. The lounge was empty, the cocktail bar not busy and we had a couple of great cocktails! The bartender was super friendly, too. Nuts and crisps are the only food, though. Great that the bar is back!

  • 1nfrequent says:

    Well done, Rhys! If this travel thing doesn’t work out, sounds like you have a potential career track in the drinks industry! 🙂

    1F

  • Roosit says:

    Well done Rhys! Slightly off topic but they didn’t happen to mention when/if they intend to stop in Kent again… (hope dies last…)

  • RussellH says:

    Trying to book the Accor offer, it says ““Some of the products are not available in your country. Please remove these products before check out”” every day. Also says that I will have trouble using iOS when I am using Windows 7, and when I look one table is convinced I want to book two…

    • Rob says:

      Yesterday I did dummy bookings for all sittings on all days (and successfully made a non-Friday booking) and it was 100% OK for non-Friday sittings and 100% not OK for the Friday ones.

      I was assuming that this article would trigger a quick fix but perhaps not ….

      • RussellH says:

        Finally, after going to a third browser, clearing 5 items from the shopping cart (no idea how they got there), ensuring that I was not (according to the website) in France, I was able to book, only to be told that there was a problem redeeming my points ( I have 12000 points and needed 3000).

        Does not seem to be a phone number to contact, just a form which promises a refund withing 2 weeks…

        • RussellH says:

          Tried a different date, same result. I found an e-mail address to contact and sent them a screenshot showing my balance, the required no. of points and the failure message.

          Not hopeful though!

          • RussellH says:

            …and the e-mail address on the website did not work
            🙁

          • Rob says:

            Hmmm … if you’re having trouble on different dates, this could potentially be Accor’s way of telling you they are sold out. That said, it’s odd that all of Friday was sold out yesterday when every single slot on every other single day was fine.

            EDIT: I got Friday to work just now using my iPhone. You need to allow pop-ups in Safari first.

  • flyforfun says:

    I actually won tickets to Taste Of London via the BA forum on Flyertalk when BA sponsored it years ago!

    It came with a generous number of tokens to use at the various stalls, but oddly no entry to the BA lounge. It didn’t matter as it took us to our allocated time to go round all the stalls and decide what we wanted anyway! Thankfully it was a nice evening so no need to shelter in the tent.

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