My friends are posh too ...Part 3 - Claridges

Claridge's Foyer
Brook Street, Mayfair
London W1K 4HR

Sadly not me enjoying this tea ....but not much needs to be said when looking at these pictures, except look for an excuse to go I'd say! 

My friend, her sister and her mum loved it - although it was very expensive (£55) it was a real afternoon tea experience rather than  just a meal, and as it was for a special birthday they felt it was worth it.

Just the crockery and cutlery are amazing ! 

The sandwiches were fresh,had generous fillings and they were happy to swap out the ham ones for the non meat eating sisters.

They were also unlimited! 

  

There was a choice of raisin and plain scones with clotted cream and gelee.

The cake choice looked incredible - I was very struck by the beauty of the Raspberry and Rhubarb Macaroon, but apparently they change them every two weeks, so can't promise one of those if you go there.

There was a choice of twenty teas, a tea lesson for the tea drinkers and they were serenaded by a pianist and cellist. 

The surroundings were beautiful and they came away stuffed,  with a little gift of Rhubarb and custard sweets to soften the blow of the bill. 

That's how you do Afternoon Tea! 

Could do better ...... Novotel London City South

53-61 Southwark Bridge Road 

SE1 9HH  LONDON 

First of all I know that going to a chain hotel probably isn't the best place to choose when looking for a London Afternoon Tea - but this was a part of a Buy a Gift deal bought as a birthday present which included the Tower Bridge experience.
The Tower Bridge was absolutely brilliant walking along that walkway ! But I have used Buy a Gift many times and had great experiences or great feedback from giftees but this will make me much more cautious. 

The tea was served in the Elements restaurant, which was very quiet - there were two other couples sat in there also taking tea, but we did feel a bit lost in what was very obviously a restaurant set up for business stays and conferences - there were some nice looking areas they could have screened off or made a bit more interesting.

We were seated by the window - which we thought was a nice idea until we saw that our outlook was the car park - at one point we even had the recycling truck pull up for a while to obscure our view further!  

Our waitress, Paula, could not have been nicer and did help to make the experience better, but it was a very lacklustre affair.

Above you can see the menu, with the choice on offer - my friend doesn't eat meat so we asked for a change of sandwich from ham which was happily changed for a cheese one. My friend ordered coffee which came cold - the second cup ordered was hot when we pointed this out to Paula.

My assam tea came in a white pot, although had a tea stained spout and tea stain dribble down the pot from the spout - not a good look but was lovely and hot and strong with a tea strainer (again stained and bit bent) 

Sandwiches were very fresh with generous fillings - three each with a mix of brown and white bread.

Scones hmm - if you look at the menu it does say SCONES plural but we only had one each, small, obviously quickly heated in the oven so was a bit too crispy -  and the horror of jam in a little jar ! But there was a generous amount of cream to spread.

The most disappointing bit for us was the pastries which were obviously defrosted - the vanilla slice was soggy and still very cold in the middle, the carrot cake was lacklustre - but the eclair was tasty.  

If you take out the cost of the TowerBridge part (10.50 each) the experience was £59 for two so the tea was £38 - a reduction of £12 from the restaurant price.

This was definitely not worth the full price of £25 and only just at £19 each with no atmosphere, setting unsuitable, food only ok. 

We had tea a 3.15 and left by 4 pm - normally it takes us a couple of hours at least to work our way through tea and cakes and chatter. 

We left a tip for Paula because she was lovely and she couldn't have served us more charmingly, but there are much much better places to take tea, and I wouldn't recommend this as one of them.  

House of High Tea Berkhamsted - Guest Blog from Helen and Pat

61 High Street, Berkhamsted HP4 2DE

Feels faintly ridiculous that I haven't made to this place as its only a few miles from where I live, but a couple of friends of mine went last week and shared their thoughts and photos. It's a family owned business, open Wednesday to Saturday and won an award for being the best Chiltern Tea Shop of 2014. 

Here are Helen and Pat's combined thoughts.

The tea room has lots of attention to detail with each table and chair set different and fresh flowers to set it off. There's even  a tiny upside down table with a mouse enjoying his afternoon tea on the ceiling! The background music was suitably relaxing and added to the atmosphere. 

We had home made sausage rolls and cheese scones before sandwiches and lemon posset to cleanse our palate before the scones and cake. 

Everything we had was home made and there was a lovely choice of cakes on the counter. There was also twenty types of tea to choose from. 

We couldn't finish it and took a cake home each. 

We must go back and try the breakfast version - a range of mini breakfast items including bagels with smoked salmon, granola pots, sweet pastries ...

All in all House of High Tea was lovely but expensive for a non London venue at £22.50 and they added 10% service charge - which again is unusual outside a London venue. Happy to leave a tip but I prefer to choose. 

I have to say ladies it does sound lovely and as it so local also means no cost to go into London etc

Café Dutch @The Dutch Nursery Brookmans Park

The Dutch Nursery Ltd

Great North Rd, 

Brookmans Park, Nr Hatfield

Herts, AL9 6ND

http://www.dutchnurserygardencentre.co.uk/ 

This was a GroupOn offer that seemed too good to miss - Afternoon Tea and Spa Treatment for £19 at Reflections @ The Dutch Nursery in Hertfordshire. 

Let’s face it - it would be rude not to.  

We’d booked this a while ago as this was the first time we were all free at the same time during the day so had almost forgotten about it, it was a great end of term treat!  We found it slightly disconcerting walking into what looked like a show conservatory for the massage in the Reflections Salon, but once inside it was like any other treatment room, nicely draped and decorated and lovely ambience and tranquil music.  We did have totally chilled out, relaxing back, neck and shoulder massages, just the right amount of pressure.  

http://reflectionsthedutchnursery.weebly.com/about.html for further details about their holistic treatments. 

By the time we’d all three finished we were all totally floppy and went and sat in the Café Dutch on the delightful terrace for our tea.

I was very taken with the beautiful V&A cups and saucers and plates! No choices of tea offered (we didn’t ask actually – too chilled after our massages!) but could have had coffee if we chose.

Tea was served in a nice china white teapot and milk jug, and then the 3 tier tray was brought out. This was very pretty!

The other girls are both vegetarian so had veggie sandwiches and I had normal – sandwiches were ham and mustard, egg and of course cucumber and cream cheese - with generous butter and fillings.

There was a cute little selection of cakes lemon drizzle (gorgeous) mini eclair and mini victoria sponge.

If I had to criticise one thing it would be the paucity of scones – there was only one mini one each although I liked the addition of the sliced strawberries. The normal cost is apparently £10.95 for Afternoon Tea  - I think if I had paid full price I would have expected at least two of those mini scones or a full size one and less cakes, as to be honest for me the scones are the highlight of an Afternoon Tea. 

But that’s me being greedy and I'm sure if I’d asked they would have given me another one. The staff were very helpful and charming and eager for us to enjoy our tea.

Considering what we paid for our whole package it was a complete bargain and even the scarcity of scones didn't spoil the event. The setting on the terrace in the sunshine was so lovely and I even got to buy some unusual plants for my garden on the way out!

Would thoroughly recommend the treatment at Reflections and also enjoyed my tea on the terrace.