Bloomsbury Secret Tea Party

To celebrate my forthcoming book MsMarmitelover's Secret Tea Party (pre-order now, out November 27th), which has a directory of UK secret teas in the back, I will occasionally be featuring other secret tea parties, that is private tea rooms in people's homes. I did my first secret tea party back in April 2009, a few months after I started my underground restaurant. I've always loved the ritual, the prettiness, the sandwiches and the baking of afternoon tea. I like to drink multiple cups of tea, from a pot, intermingled with the odd glass of champagne or teapot cocktail. I adore the gossipy potential of afternoon meetings, dressing up for the occasion.
One such secret tea room is run by Australian cookbook author David Herbert from his house in Norbiton, London. David is a collector and devotee of the Bloomsbury period of art. When you visit his tea room, you are surrounded by valuable china, ceramics, paintings from the Bloomsbury era. You even get to sit on Virginia Woolf's chairs, the seat cushions were sewn by her.
Plus you get exquisite baking, dainty smoked salmon fingers, the lightest sponges, a beautifully decorated cake (David decorated cakes for the Downton Abbey set and this was a similar example) and relentless silver pots of tea (keep 'em coming, that's how I like it). The table was dressed with delicate linens, original Edwardian glassware and enormous brightly coloured dahlias from his garden.
David has a wonderful eye, he chose the props and backgrounds for the photo shoots for my V is for Vegan book due next spring. It was an education visiting prop houses with him.
Below is a photo gallery, an unashamed visual feast, a riot of colour and texture, just because his house is so gorgeous, every little bit of it, down to the teaspoons.

David Herberts Bloomsbury Tea can be booked via [email protected]

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