Displaying items by tag: The Shard

Smart Casual - jacket not required. Smart - no jeans, no trainers, no shorts but ties not necessary. Casually Smart - jeans and trainers acceptable, jacket and standard shirt collar, tie not required. No sneakers... I do not want to be told what to wear when I eat out. Daft dress codes in dining rooms make me mad. A scruffy suit, an un-ironed shirt and a bad tie can look far worse than a smart pair of jeans and sneakers. There are many different pedigrees of jeans and sneakers and who is to tell me if mine are acceptable?

We called in at AquaShard last week - you don't need to book to get into to the bar on the 31st floor! We made it through the welcome party on the door to the fast and direct lift up to the bar. 'Sorry, I can't let you in' said the Maitre D' at the door. 'You are wearing sneakers'.

'Young man', I said in my best Suffolk dialect, 'there are people inside wearing sneakers'.

'They booked a table' replied the Maitre D'. 'If you had booked, we wouldn't turn you away, but as you have not booked, I cannot let you in wearing sneakers'.

We thought for a minute, then went up one more floor, in our sneakers, to Oblix, the bookings-only restaurant. We told them we had diamonds on the soles of our shoes. They let us in.

• Cocktails at Oblix
• Our sneakers
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