Hive Selfridges

Hive is a honey-based restaurant found at Selfridges. The intimate dining room is a chic, elegant space featuring a mix of honey and gold tones and a cutesy neon sign which reads ‘home is where your honey is’. Hive isn’t just puns and Instagram-baiting interiors though - the restaurant harvests honey weekly from a hive of 100,000 bees that live on Selfridge’s rooftop in four beehives, their yield incorporated into the menu.

We were greeted by a friendly, knowledgeable waitress, who was happy to give recommendations from Hive’s French-accented offering. Unsurprisingly, honey is present from the get go; it’s baked into a pot of St Marcellin cheese as a snack, then topped with truffle oil and served alongside honey soaked bread - a devilishly indulgent start.

Next, we opted for a trio of plump and fleshy scallops served atop an earthy pea puree, dotted with purple cauliflower and almost too pretty to eat. Mains also impressed; meaty roasted monkfish arrives resting in an indulgent pool of creamy polenta and Comte cheese, its bath of rosemary honey giving it an extra layer of sticky sweetness.

Come dessert, the Hive Signature is a thing of beauty, constructed to look like a beehive and consisting of a thick yuzu white chocolate shell which reveals a moreish cream filling at its centre, studded with chunks of pear and ginger. Other fun novelties include a honey tasting flight (diners can try four of Hive’s in-house honeys) and a honey and cheese afternoon tea.

Where Hive falls short is the jarringly awkward layout of the dining room, which lacks any natural flow and leaves you keenly aware that you are eating your dinner 10 feet away from the lingerie department. We also found Hive’s accompanying soundtrack truly baffling - Eminem and Drake songs blasted out from the speakers, which hardly felt like an appropriate match for a restaurant where mains are priced north of £25.

Despite these shortcomings, Hive is undoubtedly a unique concept and would make for a fun retreat after a day of retail therapy.

As the name suggests, Hive is a restaurant concept based almost entirely around honey. Found on the third floor of iconic department store Selfridges, Hive is an all-day operation which boasts a rather unique feature: four real beehives adjacent to the restaurant with 100,000 bees set on Selfridges rooftop and where honey is harvested weekly and incorporated into the French influenced menu.

The modern, elegant space has been brought to life by design agency L’Atelier Five, complete with honey-toned furnishings, florals hanging from the ceiling and polished beech wood floors. The all-day menu kicks off with breakfast, where guests can choose between sweet and savoury options - think figs on toast with ricotta and honey or a truffle omelette with Mountain honey.

Later in the day, the menu moves on to the traditional three-course format. You can kick-start your meal with the likes of scallops with cauliflower puree and Chervil cream sauce or a Hive salad, which consists of celeriac, pear, walnut, beetroot and creme fraiche dressing. For your main course, choose between dishes such as roasted monkfish with red pepper puree and basil oil or opt for cornfed roasted chicken breast with with honey-glazed carrots, savoy cabbage and Lyonnaise potatoes.

To round off your meal, tuck into tempting pudding options such as a lavender honey creme brulee or Eton mess topped with honeycomb. For more sweetness, check out Hive’s novel take on a traditional British afternoon tea, which has been reinvented as a cheese and honey pairing. The experience begins with a selection of cheeses, before guests move on to a range of pastries - think Japanese honey matcha cake, buckwheat honey madeleine and scones slathered with cream, jam or honey.

To drink, there are a range of honey-infused cocktails, mocktails, Champagnes and a list of wines from France and Italy.