Happy Saturday! Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends for another fab guest post from our lovely reader Victoria Redshaw. If you've popped by before you'll probably recognise Victoria's name as she has written a couple of fab guest post for us now and we always love to hear about her latest afternoon tea adventure.....
Having visited this blog for afternoon tea inspiration on a few occasions, Marian, my oldest friend and I selected the Ampersand Hotel for our next girly meet up, thanks to Rachel & Lorna’s recommendation. We were attracted by the location, the variety of sweet treats by pastry chef Ju Sin and the fact that they offer a vegetarian option, which was perfect for Marian, and I could still have the “classic”.
The area for afternoon tea is beautifully decorated, with quirky furnishings and a bird theme running throughout. We were on a table which was very low, but with equally low chairs; we loved it! We did have the option of moving to a “proper” table, but decided we were perfectly happy with our position which was also perfect for people watching!
Before we received our afternoon tea, we had a glass of champagne each – celebrating Marian’s imminent house move, my new job and our birthdays. Well, why not?
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| Marian enjoying some bubbles with her tea |
So, to start we had a selection of tartines (open sandwiches) on the thinnest of French bread. Yes, there is a crust on there, but it worked incredibly well. On the classic option, there was smoked salmon, coronation chicken, cheddar cheese and a turkey and mustard tartine. Marian’s vegetarian plate had egg and watercress, cucumber and a goat’s cheese with apple tartine. The thinness of the bread ensured that we weren’t too bloated, which we both agreed was beneficial.
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| Afternoon tea open sandwiches - Ampersand |
Onto the scones. Beautifully fresh, one fruit scone and one plain served with strawberry jam and a scoop of clotted cream. We both agreed they were delicious. Marian almost left part of hers, having seen the top layer of sweet treats, but then thought better of it! So frequently people seem to make a scone too “claggy”, but these were perfect!
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| Afternoon tea scones - Ampersand |
So, that top layer. Well, what a great bunch of sweet treats they were! The lemon meringue tart was simply superb, with the most delicious lemon curd inside. The English breakfast tea chocolate bonbon was perfect, in fact I’m still thinking about it now. However, my very favourite was the perfectly light chocolate brownie with peanut honey ganache. Wow! What a show stopper!
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| Afternoon tea sweets - Ampersand |
All this was washed down with a leaf tea – mine was a supremely fragrant Jasmine Silver Tip and Marian enjoyed the Lemon Verbena, which she said was very refreshing.
The vegetarian afternoon tea was £25 and the classic £27.50. A glass of champagne added £12 onto the cost of each option. I see they have a Chelsea Flower Show themed tea from 9th May; maybe I’ll have to return to London rather sooner than I anticipated!
Any regular visitors to the blog will know that we've enjoyed lots of afternoon tea adventures at The Ampersand, so we are so pleased to see other people enjoying the teas on offer there too. If you'd like to know more about the amazing pastry chef behind these fab creations take a peek at our meet the chef article!
A huge thank you to Victoria for another lovely post - we always love seeing your photos and can't wait for the next one! If you'd like to share your latest afternoon tea adventure with us we'd love to hear from you!
Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel & Lorna
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