Penelope Alice visits the elusive London venue, Toy Room

This week PA Life Club members got to visit the exclusive underground London venue, Toy Room.

Based within the vaults of the London Palladium, the Toy Room main doors are hidden on Argyll Street, less than a minutes’ walk from Oxford Circus tube station.

Upon arrival, I walked down the stairs, greeted by the Toy Room bear logo on the walls, guiding the way to the reception area. There were a few sets of steps leading us down and on every set of steps came new wall art.

Wall Art – Toy Room

Arriving in the reception area, we were invited to sit on chairs made from recycled teddy bears, eye-catching, unique and very comfortable. We were then asked to check our coats in the cloakroom and before being taken into the events room.

The events room (White Room) was actually made up of three rooms with open archways connecting them to each other. The first room I was shown the middle room it had a DJ playing at the back of the room, with many pieces of modern art on the walls and lighting effects that changed the colours of the walls with graphics such as Christmas baubles. The room had some comfortable sofa seating and tables filled with nibbles.

The room to the left was slightly more abstract, with less seating but a lovely teddy bear graphic on the back wall. All the lighting was in red or pink, it really should have caused a bit of a headache but was rather therapeutic and felt fresh considering it’s a nightclub venue.

The room to the right was a bar that was decorated with a very pretty flower/plant arrangement and the two bar staff were incredibly knowledgeable about the drinks they were making and about what they could make specific to individual corporate events. For this event, I was informed that the bar had created several cocktails for the evening which included a new creamy chocolate drink, which we all found very easy to drink and incredibly moreish. A rum, orange and cinnamon punch and a strawberry vodka blend. All of them were fabulous!

White Room Bar – Toy Room

The back of all three rooms had six booths which were ideal for smaller work events or something you would give the senior management team at a larger event. These included seating up to four to six people and the chance to have pre-booked drink packages included with the booth hire.

After a few cocktails and some lovely canapes which catered for all including vegans, meat-eaters and even a couple of gluten-free options, we were given a tour of the venue by the club manager Dimitri Serif. I thought we were in the largest area of the venue until we were shown a lot more on the tour.

After heading back through reception, we entered the ‘main room’, a room with a capacity of over 400 people, a much larger room than the previous ones, which boasted a bar made from teddy bears and another DJ booth. Plus, on the left were a couple of VIP areas, which could include a drink service and could be curtained off it needs be.

The main room was filled with seating and tables but we were assured that these could be moved around to create spaces for more free-flowing events if you’d rather have people on their feet and dancing than sat down.

At the back of the venue, there was another contemporary and colourful room, it was a smaller private events room that felt like you’d walked into a dystopian manor house guest room. It featured a large chandelier a smaller private bar and a large enough space to fit around 50. The room had been covered in sprayed U.V paint. It was as if you’d entered a screen from a 1980s Batman film. It happened to be mine and many other PAs favourite room of the night, with a lot of potential when hosting an event.

The night was great fun and filled with great company.

The Toy Room is definitely a venue that I would consider hosting a corporate party at. It was fun, friendly and very unique plus, the location in central London was perfect for anyone travelling by train, tube or bus. The food, drink and service was top notch and made me confident that any function put on at the venue would run very smoothly.