Afternoon Tea in London

The Gore Hotel, Kensington

2011-05-14T13:58:00.016+01:00

If London was a flat, the surrounding areas would be bedrooms, The City and the East End would be the kitchen, Soho would be the toilet where people come to shag and snort cocaine off faux marble counters, and anything west of Picadilly would be the parlour. The Gore hotel is swept under a chair in a sunny part of the parlour, close to the balcony of Hyde Park.

Anabelle and I opted to take our tea in the bistro as opposed to the bar. The establishment exuded the familiar Victorian comfort often encountered in London without feeling overly fusty. Giant gilded-frame mirrors offered near infinite reflections of the room and its vintage chandeliers and 19th century prints.

We were a bit taken aback to find ourselves ushered to a nearly empty restaurant. Save for a jovial birthday celebration we were the only guests there. I like when a restaurant is busy, when the waiters are gliding from table to table in their quiet efficiency. Servants become waiters, their dreaded destiny becomes a job. It's something my lower middle class origin can process and justify. The service was very good, although the maitre'd (cum servant in my twisted perception) looked a bit flummoxed when we asked for Champagne. The waiter was very attentive to timing, making sure we were ready for the food after having our Champagne and doing his best to make us not feel rushed.

The selection of tea was standard. Anabelle and I ordered a pot of Darjeeling. First sip revealed a faint but unmistakable essence of bergamot. We concluded that this was either an Earl Grey or a Darjeeling that spent too much time in the earl's bedroom and acquired the aristocrat's signature scent. Our suspicion was confirmed by the waiter, who quietly resolved our confusion by bringing the package the tea leaves came in. It was Earl Grey Darjeeling. It would have been courteous to be more descriptive on the menu.

The surrounding area

The food was good although uninventive. The tiered plate struck a good balance of savouries and sweets and the strawberries that garnished the sandwich tier tasted freshly picked. The sandwich course included the tried and tested combination of roast beef, salmon, ham and cucumber, crusts duly trimmed. Scones were delicious and so were the éclairs and miniature marzipan tarts.

Our experience at the Gore was pleasant but the tea is too pricey to be a quotidian haunt of the middle classes but too unremarkable to become a destination for special occasions.

The Gore
190 Queen's Gate
London
SW7 5EX
http://www.gorehotel.com/
Afternoon tea £19.50 per person
Our rating: 3 out of 5

Tete-a-Tea

2011-04-24T21:09:00.028+01:00

Anabelle and I may have just found the best afternoon tea in London. I know this is a bold statement but our Tete-a-Tea experience was not much short of flawless. Hosted by Sharon Jakobowitz in the former Dalston Boys Club off Kingsland Road this pop-up tea event is much more glamorous than the vicinity may suggest.

We entered the building through a beaten up old door unlocked by a buzzer – an experience perhaps more familiar to gallery goers and pop-up event enthusiasts rather than we tea marms. We peeked into the ground floor music hall whose air of last night's merry-making permeated into the stairwell. Up a couple of flights of stairs we were welcomed to a parlour that blended the atmosphere of a domestic homage to Dracula's lair with that of a Mayfair mansion set to hold a secret society meeting.

I didn't realize how intimate the event was going to be. If you're seeking to submerge into the soothing anonymity large cities offer to their dwellers don't go to Tete-a-Tea. The event takes the entire afternoon and you'll be seated at a country house-style communal table with 9 other punters. Do not expect a chatty bed-and-breakfast overbearing host and geriatric patrons though. Anabelle and I were the only white-haired ladies among the guests who hailed from Germany, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Italy and, yes, London – the kind of mix so familiar to Londoners. It was remarkable how unconstrained it felt to sit with all these strangers. We thought we'd need to drop in an Isabelle Hupért-style, irreverent, shocking remark to get the conversation going but people seemed quite comfortable with each other and there was no need to disrupt the genteel atmosphere.

When we arrived we were casually presented with dainty amuse bouche but true to our custom Anabelle and I instead opted for a generous flute of Champagne of unremarkable vintage, but of extreme comfort in the middle of the April heat wave. After a cigarette and a pleasant unhurried chit-chat on a cast-iron balcony overlooking the post-industrial back alleys of Dalston we followed the other guests in to take our tea.

Notice the violet cordial on the bottom of the
Champagne flute – Sharon's divine touch.

Before the sandwiches arrived and the tea had a chance to steep we pecked on cucumber slices topped with a spread that reminded me of my childhood. In fact the memory so intensely overpowered my tastbuds that I had hard time pinpointing its ingredients — ok, it was tuna salad. One enormous advantage of the communal table was the unlimited availability of one's favourites. We deplore buffets but communal tables are different. Although there is an abundant supply the guests have to negotiate the loading of their plates and everyone is too embarrassed to succumb to their base animal instinct to stuff themselves silly.

The food and tea were served in carefully sourced teaware imported from far-flung corners of the continent. There was a choice of three kinds of very good leaf tea: Assam, Darjeeling and Earl Grey. Large teapots held the hot water and guests put the tea leaves into individual strainers and steeped the tea to their liking. While the tea was steeping we dug into the sandwiches: delicious roast beef with horseradish, salmon on dense moist German rye bread, a salad of mange tout, beetroot and goats cheese on a lettuce cup and a mini tortilla (the Spanish omelette kind, not the Mexican wrap). The scones that followed were impeccable and so was the strawberry and apricot jam with a delicious hint of amaretto. Everything was made from scratch by Sharon. And then came the cakes: berry tart with crème Anglaise, dense poppy seed cake with lemon drizzle, chocolate mousse in chocolate cups and Sharon's unforgettable take on Mont Blanc.

Through her passionate care Sharon Jakobowitz conjures up a unique, thoroughly contemporary experience with an unsentimental hint of "old world" charm.

Tete-a-tea
Dalston Boys Club
68 Boleyn Road
London N16 8JG
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112544302106117
Afternoon tea £20 per person (must be booked ahead)
Our rating: 5 out of 5

The Soho's Secret Tea Room

2011-04-16T12:00:00.001+01:00

After a lovely afternoon perusing the fleshy Boucher's at the Wallace collection Agnes and I developed quite an appetite. We resolved to head into depths of Soho to see if we could find ourselves a satisfying afternoon tea.

We were intrigued by Soho's Secret Tea Room above the Coach and Horses on Greek Street and enquired at the bar. We were invited to walk through the kitchen and up a back staircase to the second floor — we were loving it already. Upstairs shabby chic, with an emphasis on the shabby, prevailed in the delightfully cozy tea room filled with tables padded with innumerable layers of vintage table cloths, assorted mirrors on the walls and fresh flowers on the tables.

A variety of patrons sat huddled over mismatched tea pots and mounds of goodies. The atmosphere was made even more pleasant by the record player softly spinning Bing Crosby and other nostalgic crooners. We were very hopeful and immediately relaxed by the pleasant and unpretentious surroundings. Good thing we were relaxed as it took quite a long time for the waitress to make it to our table. When she brought the menu we were delighted to see classic tea time sarnies such as cucumber, egg and cress and smoked salmon with cream cheese. The tea menu consisted of a choice of the 3 above mentioned finger sandwiches, a choice of a fruit or plain scone with clotted cream and home made jam, a choice of cupcake, cake and, of course, tea. My goodness how to choose, all the cakes looked scrummy. We must admit that the tea list was a little disappointing with an emphasis on blends, flavoured teas and Rooibos. We are rather traditionalist when it comes to our teas. We selected Darjeeling and a premium English Breakfast which was supposed to cost a bit extra although they didn't charge us for this.

Our tea, sandwiches and scones did take their time arriving but the atmosphere was so pleasant we were unperturbed. When they did arrive we were impressed with the generosity, six finger sandwiches each and two scones as opposed to the one promised on the menu. Again, the tea was rather disappointing, the Darjeeling lacked its signature complexity and the English Breakfast was nothing special, in fact we had a hard time telling them apart. The sandwiches, however, were very good, slathered with butter, fresh and spongy. The cucumber and egg — curiously sans cress but still delicious — could have used a generous pinch of salt, but the smoked salmon was truly divine. The scones were very good, Agnes thought excellent, but I thought just a wee bit powdery. The fruit scone was especially good with bits of candied orange peel and raisins.

After finishing our sandwiches and three of our four scones the waitress brought our cakes and cupcakes. The vanilla cupcake I chose was fresh and delicious but tooth-achingly sweet, which it seems cupcakes are bound to be. This American craze for cupcakes, which seems to have invaded the British tea table, must end. I vow to walk out if I ever see a whoppie pie on a tea menu. Agnes' coffee cake was perfect — fresh, home made and not too sweet at all.

After all that we were feeling like some rather fleshy Boucher's ourselves so we asked the waitress to wrap up our remaining scone, lemon curd cupcake and chocolate cake to take home. We enjoyed them immensely with a fine Assam Mangalam the next day. The lemon curd cupcake wasn't nearly as sweet as the vanilla cupcake and still tasted very fresh the next day. The chocolate cake was very good as well, not too sweet but it did lack that satisfying richness a truly excellent chocolate cake should have.

All in all it was a lovely afternoon made lovelier by our visit to Soho's Secret Tea Room. We shall surely patronise this establishment again — pleasant, delicious and so reasonably priced. Our two teas and service came to £32.60.

Soho's Secret Tea Room
Above The Coach and Horses pub
29 Greek Street
London W1D 5DH
Afternoon tea £14.50 per person (service not included)
Our rating: 3.5 out of 5

Ladurée at Harrods

2011-04-09T21:49:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday, running errands in Knightsbridge, Anabelle and I found ourselves in desperate need of refreshment. It was tea time and we decided to visit Ladurée at Harrods. Although a French import the house seemed to offer a decent selection of tea and the pastries. Anabelle and I are familiar with Ladurée's macarons from our Parisian jaunts and we are both very fond of them indeed.

The beginning of our tea was not promising. We got shuffled around a vague queue until a friendly waitress showed us to our table. I'll take this opportunity to remark on the setting and the clientelle. The restaurant is very busy with people using it as an entrance to Harrods. The atmosphere is a bit hurried for my taste, more like a café than a tearoom but it fits well with the maison's Parisian provenance. The patrons seemed to consist chiefly of groups of bored rich macho males – who didn't converse but vacantly stared and used grunts to communicate their orders to the staff – peppered with appropriate female counterparts and the occasional tourist. Expensive but vulgar clothing dominates. If you want to blend in wear an expensive factory-tattered t-shirt and sunglasses with a large Chanel or Dior logo. If clothing expresses one's beliefs the patrons at Ladurée worship wealth way ahead of aesthetics.

Now to the tea. With the exception of substituting croissants and other "viennoiserie" for our traditional scones the tea menu looked unremarkable albeit promising. The menu offers a choice of two each from four sandwiches, four aforementioned pastries and four cakes. Anabelle and I like to sample so we exhausted the choices of the menu with our order. While Anabelle trekked to the toilet a pleasant waiter chap asked me to accompany him to the cake counter to select our cakes. The pastries and cakes at Ladurée looked truly splendid. I picked a praline mille-feuille, raspberry tart, rosewater cupcake and a creation they call Isphahan, which is an oversized macaron filled with berries flavoured with rosewater. Pleased with my selection I returned to the table to find Anabelle just arriving back from the toilet. Wanting to refresh myself I set out on the journey through the basement wine shop to the toilet. When I got back Anabelle told me that the pleasant chap was new and he didn't know what he was doing and that we wouldn't get the magnificent cakes I selected and we had to select cakes from the menu. This was not a disaster as the only cake we had to substitute was the rosewater cupcake. We opted for the last remaining choice on the menu: carre de chocolat.

The tea arrived shortly and the food soon followed. I ordered Ceylon tea and Anabelle ordered Darjeeling. Or the other way around but it doesn't matter as we always share everything anyway. Both teas were pleasant, although not of exceptional provenance or estate. I must point out that both Anabelle and I enjoy a spot of milk in our tea and you will seldom find us drinking Oolong or Green tea in our reviews, let alone novelties like Yerba Mate or Roiboos. All these are good but we find that black tea with milk is best calibrated to accompany the traditional afternoon tea menu.

In my view the tea at Ladurée progressed from the worst to the best. The sandwiches came wrapped in wax paper sealed with a little utilitarian sticker. I would call them uninventive at best. They would feature much better on an EasyJet flight but they didn't belong to a serious tearoom. The croissant, almond croissant and brioche that followed were a step up. Anabelle though these miniature versions of traditional French pastries were excellent but I would be more cautious and call them good. The real treat were the cakes. The Isphahan deserves a special mention, topped with a rose petal the it was a creation any Parisian patisserie could be proud of. Instead of a decent quantity of sandwiches on the bottom largest plate the sandwiches were on the tiny top plate with the bottom plate full of the large cakes. The menu was, as it often is the case with afternoon tea, a bit heavy on the sweets and we had to ask our waiter to wrap the carre de chocolate for us to go. The poor chap forgot and we had to ask one of the more competent waiters to do it for us long after we paid. Alas, we enjoyed the carre de chocolat with a pot of Nilgiri Assam the next morning in bed and it was scrumptious.

The afternoon tea at Ladurée, while far from the worst, was about as far from the best. I'm afraid we cannot give our A&A endorsement to an afternoon tea with pitiful sandwiches and the atmosphere of a railway station cafeteria. Do come for the macaron though, they are exceptional.

Ladurée at Harrods
87/135 Brompton Road
London SW1X 7XL
http://www.laduree.fr/en/maisons/monde-details#112
Afternoon tea £21 per person (service not included)
Our rating: 2 out of 5