Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden

You're standing 60 feet up on a slender platform suspended between sky and the river, with St Paul's Cathedral framed in one direction and Westminster Bridge stretching out in another. The Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden isn't trying to be fancy—it's just a straightforward café that happens to occupy one of London's best-kept vantage points. The concrete aesthetic of the Southbank Centre wraps around you, which somehow makes the openness of the space feel even more striking. It's the sort of place where you'll see locals sipping coffee between gallery visits, tourists actually pausing to take in their surroundings, and on decent days, a proper mix of both.