Le Club Bar, Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi

Le Club Bar is the lounge of the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi at 15 Ngo Quyen, in the French Quarter of Hoan Kiem District, about 400 metres east of Hoan Kiem Lake and close to the Opera House in Hanoi, Vietnam. The hotel opened in 1901 and has hosted figures such as Graham Greene, Charlie Chaplin and Jane Fonda, and the bar keeps that colonial atmosphere with ceiling fans, cane chairs and a grand piano. The crowd is largely hotel guests, couples, business travellers and visitors marking a special evening, mostly adults from their thirties upward. Smart-casual dress is the sensible standard for a five-star hotel lounge, and beachwear is out of place. The mood is refined and unhurried rather than a party scene. Music is live: a pianist or jazz trio plays most evenings from about 20:00, giving the room a supper-club feel. The drinks programme centres on classic cocktails, Vietnamese coffee drinks and a long gin list, and earlier in the day the lounge serves an English-style afternoon tea. Cocktails cost about 250,000-450,000 VND, roughly USD 9.62-17.31, so prices are high by local standards, reflecting the hotel setting. The lounge is open daily from about 10:00 to 24:00, which makes it one of the few Hanoi venues that works equally well for an afternoon and a late drink. There is no cover charge and no bottle-service culture. Reservations are advisable for afternoon tea and for weekend evenings, particularly for a table near the piano, and can be arranged through the hotel on +84 24 3826 6919. Because the bar is in a hotel, it is one of the quieter, safer late options for visitors who prefer a calm end to the evening, and it sits within a short walk of the Opera House and Trang Tien.