Time for Tea....The Chesterfield, Mayfair

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you're having a tea-riffic day so far!

Recently Lorna and I visited The Chesterfield in Mayfair (London) to try their Christmas afternoon tea (yes, I know we're only just in December but we both LOVE Christmas and wanted to get into the Christmas spirit!).

The Chesterfield is somewhere that we haven't tried before, its a four star hotel located in Mayfair with a Regency style. Until the 3rd January they are serving their Winter Wonderland Afternoon Tea....

Christmas afternoon tea sweets -
The Chesterfield Hotel

The Chesterfield is a rather traditional hotel and their afternoon tea offering is also rather traditional. 

They have a fairly extensive tea menu to pick from, however I was disappointed that we were given only one tea strainer despite ordering two very different teas (one a delicate white tea and one a Christmas spiced tea!). Once we highlighted this error another tea strainer was brought out - but not before both teas were poured through the one strainer!

The first thing to be served was a shot of warm mulled wine....

Christmas afternoon tea mulled wine -
The Chesterfield Hotel

Now, I love a cup of mulled wine at Christmas time....but if I'm honest on this occasion I'm not really sure what a shot glass of mulled wine added to the afternoon tea experience.

Next the tea stand was served, which included the sandwiches, scones and sweets.

The sandwiches included:

Roast turkey with cranberry mayonnaise on white bread

Honey roast ham with Cheddar cheese and tomato chutney on onion bread

Scottish smoked salmon with cream cheese on brown bread

Free range egg mayonnaise and watercress on basil bread

Cucumber and cream cheese on white bread

Christmas afternoon tea sandwiches - The Chesterfield Hotel

The sandwiches were fresh and well filled, but they were a little uninspiring and not overly Christmassey.

We were offered a refill of the sandwiches, which we declined before moving onto the scones which were served warm (although not covered) with clotted cream and strawberry preserve....

Afternoon tea scones - The Chesterfield Hotel

The scones had a distinctively homemade look about them and were rather flat in appearance....however they were incredibly light and tasty. We devoured all the scones very quickly!

Next we moved onto the sweet plate....

Christmas afternoon tea sweets - The Chesterfield Hotel

Although you can only see four sweets in this photo, there were actually six in total. 

The selection included:

Mulled wine macaroon

Christmas tree chocolate pot

Cranberry and vanilla cheesecake

Snowman cupcake

Yule log

Festive fruit tart 

We were rather underwhelmed by this plate as it lacked a lot of the traditional Christmas items we thought we might see in this traditional hotel. Where was the Christmas cake or mince pie? 

The Festive fruit tart was just a normal fruit tart....I'm not entirely sure what was festive about it! The Mulled wine macaroon lacked flavour...in fact the main flavour was almonds.

Lorna enjoyed the yule log and I was pleased to discover the snowman cupcake was in fact a ginger cake, which was well flavoured. The other items were ok, but not memorable.

We were offered additional food throughout our time at The Chesterfield and the service was friendly. However, we were left a little disappointed with this afternoon tea as it lacked a little finesse and a lot of Christmas spirit.

The tea costs £34.50 per person, or £41.50 per person with a glass of bubbles.

The Chesterfield offers afternoon tea throughout the year and previously served a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory afternoon tea. For more information about the afternoon teas on offer visit the Chesterfield website. Have you tried an afternoon tea at the Chesterfield - we'd love to hear what you thought...

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for Tea at Brown's - The English Tea Rooms

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends. After all the themes, quirks and somethings a little bit different that we've enjoyed lately it was wonderful to enjoy a very traditional afternoon tea in The English Tea Rooms at Brown's in Mayfair to celebrate Mother's Day.

The jubilant mood was set with a glass of champagne (or a non-alcoholic cocktail if you preferred) and we took our time choosing our teas.  Getting in the spirit of Tea Month we opted for three different blends of black tea (optimal for sharing, don't you know!) and were all thrilled to try the Cornish tea which had a lovely depth of flavour and just goes to show that we Brits can do anything when we put our minds to it, even grow tea in our capricious climate!

Afternoon tea - Browns Hotel, Mayfair

The sandwiches were delicate and divine with lots of variety and subtle, well-paired flavours.  They were also bountiful but we piously declined subsequent plates so that we had plenty of room for the delights to follow.

Afternoon tea sandwiches
Browns Hotel

The scones (how do you emphasise the 'o' in text so that Rachel knows I'm pronouncing it correctly?) were petite, warm and simply scrumptious.  There was no shortage of cream and jam although shockingly I did have to request a top up of cream with our second helping of scones!

Scrumptious scones!
Browns Hotel

There was a lovely selection of dainty pastries and fancies atop the cake stand which were just the right size.  My favourite had to be the decadent chocolate tart which was simply to die for but I was somewhat disappointed by the battenburg cake which didn't have the distinctive almond taste I was anticipating.  Never happy to end a paragraph on a low note, I would also add that the lavender cake took me by surprise and was full of aromatic flavour which I was not expecting.

The afternoon tea sweet treats on offer at
 Browns Hotel were quite beautiful!

From the cake trolley (which we sadly never saw) we all enjoyed a slice of lemon drizzle cake which was moist and delicious.

Fresh from the Browns Hotel cake trolley - lemon drizzle cake

All in all we had a wonderful afternoon with fabulous food, superb service (if a tad rushed in the middle) in a splendid setting.  There is very little that could be done to improve this tremendous traditional afternoon tea.

A traditional afternoon tea at Browns costs £41.50 per person, if you would like to indulge in a glass of champagne (who wouldn't!) it will cost £51.50 per person. This is a high end afternoon tea, but the food and drink is of a wonderful quality and is plentiful.

If you would like to know more about the afternoon tea experience at Browns, pop by their website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Lorna