Claridges – London’s ultimate afternoon tea
Perfection in an afternoon tea – welcome to Claridges
This was meant to be my last ever London afternoon tea post but as I’m still here and stuck in limbo (house sales are oh-so-fun~) and I like to tell my readers about the best things a place has to offer, I am now publishing a post that I wanted to save until we leave here. This post is about the best afternoon tea I have ever had. After more than 30 afternoon tea sittings in this city (yes, I was surprised at this number too), here is Claridges, that wonderful hotel in the heart of Mayfair.
My sister and I went there when she visited in October and while I drafted parts of this post back then, I decided not to publish until I was leaving London as it really was the cherry on top of an array of incredible afternoon teas.
When I do eventually leave, I know I’m going to miss London with every bone in my body. You don’t move on from a love affair with a city that you have embraced whole-heartedly for ten years within a few hours. I am going to miss my regular sessions of afternoon tea with London. My waistline won’t.
But you want to know all about afternoon tea at Claridges. So here we go. This is an amended version of the post I wrote for the High Tea Society:
Tea, cakes and beautiful China topped off with a lovely white rose
“No detail has been forgotten at Claridges. They have a standard to uphold and it shows in everything from the carefully selected range of tea, to perfect food offerings and a menu that has been designed with some of London’s afternoon tea quirks included. Every guest is treated as if they are the only person in the room, making this not just about the food, but the experience.
The setting is extremely elegant, set in Claridges art deco foyer, with live piano music covering well known classics from across the musical world. You are offered a seat in either the main part of the foyer or their library, to which we chose the former where we sat in comfortable chairs, quietly people watching as we perused the extensive menu.
I agree with their take on the jam and cream debate!
The afternoon tea begins with sandwiches alongside the first set of tea (the tea menu is created in partnership with Henrietta Lovell of the Rare Tea Company). We were served chicken with lemon and tarragon on granary bread, smoked salmon with brown shrimp butter and rock samphire on rye bread, and beautiful cucumber sandwiches among others. The bread was fluffy and went down so well. It went great with our first choices of tea – the Malawi Antler white tea (found only in two restaurants in the world, Noma in Copenhagen and Claridges) and the White Monkey Paw green tea.
Delectable sandwiches
The next course were Claridges world famous fruit and plain scones served with Cornish clotted cream and Marco Polo gelee which is infused with bergamont and vanilla pods – divine. The scones certainly lived up to their reputation, and if we hadn’t seen the selection of pastries ahead of us we would have ordered more. We chose 2nd flush Darjeeling and steamed green tea to go with these and both complemented the scones well.
SCONES!
For the final event, the pastries were served and we felt like the gods had sent us cakes from the heavens. While we enjoyed the Claridges blend black tea and the lemongrass infusion served with these, we enjoyed the choux pastry so much that one of us actually had two (ok, I admit, it was me and I had three; I was heavily pregnant at the time…).
Details
The quality of the food was incredible, the service beyond outstanding and the location, well, it was Claridges; it was amazing. This is one afternoon tea that is worth every penny of what may seem like quite a steep cost at first. It could possibly be the world’s ultimate afternoon tea and we were beyond delighted with our afternoon.”
Not High Tea Society lady here:
This is one of those afternoon teas that is really for a special occasion. My sister took me to celebrate the impending arrival of Mr Man Jr and also the fact that we would be hearing our Great Grandfather’s name read out on the Roll of Honour at the Tower of London that evening. Take your best friend to celebrate her getting hitched, take your Mum to celebrate her just being awesome, just make it special as Claridges is really that perfect icing on the best cake ever.
Claridges can be found at Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 4HR. Nearest tube is Bond Street. We paid £50 each plus 12.5% service charge.
