Time for Tea.....The Intercontinental at The O2

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends!

We hope you're keeping well!

So, last weekend here in the UK it was Mother's Day and as some of you know, this blog exists from our family tradition of taking mum for a Mother's Day afternoon tea. One problem with last weekend though.....it also happened to be Country 2 Country - a three day country music festival that Lorna and I always attend. It's held at the O2 in London and there are music acts playing throughout the day and into the night.

We fixed our little problem though as we decided to stay at The Intercontinental hotel at the O2 this year.....and they offer an afternoon tea! So we dragged mum up to the O2 to listen to some country music with us and enjoy a spot of afternoon tea!

Intercontinental at the O2 serve their afternoon tea in the Meridian Lounge, overlooking the River Thames and Canary Wharf. We were given a corner table looking straight out onto the Thames, which was like a little oasis in the corner of the lounge....

The afternoon tea was a traditional affair, starting with a selection of finger sandwiches and savouries. The section included:

Honey roasted ham with wholegrain mustard mayonnaise on Pain de Mie
Mature cheddar cheese and pickle on carrot bread
Sliced cucumber and grated radishes with crème fraîche on beetroot bread
Smoked salmon with dill cream cheese on basil bread
Truffle egg mayonnaise on a brioche bun

It was a very pretty sandwich plate, with a variety of colours making it interesting to look at. There was also a variety of flavours to sample. I enjoyed the cucumber and radish more than I thought I would and I enjoyed the cheese and pickle sandwich. I wasn't really a fan of the egg mayonnaise on the brioche bun though, as the sweetness of the bun was rather overpowering.

The sandwiches were fresh and crustless....but take a look at the sizing....why is my ham sandwich so much shorter than the others??

At this point I'll note that our tea was refreshed regularly throughout the afternoon tea and we were given the opportunity to change our tea choice.

When we had finished our savouries the afternoon tea stand was served.....queue photo of Lorna waving at me through the top tier....

We started with the scones at the bottom of the stand, which were served with clotted cream and two different preserves. The scones were served warm, they were a good size and had a lovely colour - they looked very appealing against the white plates.

We weren't a fan of the preserves (one was strawberry and the other apricot), which seemed to lack flavour, but the scones themselves had a great texture and were not at all claggy.

We were served two scones each - one plain and one fruit. There was also plenty of cream and preserve for all three of us. 

Finally we moved onto the sweet treats, which were very pretty....

This pretty sweet selection included

Blackberry Bonbon Torte

Plum and Custard Verrine

Pear and Apple Tart

Spiced Chocolate Pyramid

Quince macaroon

The stand out item for me was the chocolate pyramid - the cake was moist and light, with layers of ganache. Each item looked beautiful, a lot of thought had gone into the presentation of this afternoon tea.

I also want to compliment the Meridian Lounge on how welcoming they are and how knowledgeable their staff were about the teas. One server in particular helped mum with her choice of tea, suggesting different ways to sweeten the tea. She also came back during the afternoon to see whether mum was enjoying her tea. It was refreshing to be served by someone who actually knew about tea and the different ways to enjoy it. 

Probably not the first choice for many people because of the location, but the Intercontinental at the O2 offers a well priced afternoon tea, with excellent service. If you'd like to know more about their afternoon tea, pop by their website

If you treated your mum to a Mother's Day afternoon tea last weekend, we'd love to hear all about it. Leave a comment on the blog, or get in touch on Facebook!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna