"I wish I was a dancer, tracing with my feet the lines of Butlers' menu"

Sammii here!

I have recently been lavishing myself far too much (by accident- long story cut short, I thought that this experience would be free but it wasn't!) I went for a spot of afternoon tea with my girls. Tea and catching up just go hand in hand!

The Venue? 

Butler's at the Chesterfield Mayfair Hotel.

Price? 

£36.50 per person.

The venue being in the heart of Mayfair fell nothing short from what you might expect. Doormen stood in the entrance ready to meet and greet you as you arrive. High ceiling, luxurious furniture, it is a place you imagine the queen dining in. A place where you go to treat yourself for a one off occasion. It looked like people dining here had those exact thoughts, as there were choirs of "Happy Birthday to you" that went off more than 5 times. There were a group of women who looked like they were celebrating a baby shower. 

We were seated in an area that had a conservatory/green house feeling, of course feeling like I was sat in the conservatory of Mr Obama's own home! This place would be wonderful in the summer time as it had glass panels on the ceiling letting the weather shine through, though this being London and in the middle of February, it was glum weather all around. 

We all chose to go for the afernoontea package which came at £36.50 per person. Everything came with free refills, so it was kind of like a buffet style afternoon tea! 

Up first was this fizzy little drink, which was very refreshing and fun!

I went for the Chesterfield Afternoon Tea blend, which was full of flavour with hints of spice in it. 

The Sandwich Selection: 

• Honey roast ham with Cheddar cheese and tomato chutney on onion bread.
• Roast chicken with grain mustard mayonnaise and nibbed almonds on white 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.

My favourite one was the roast chicken with grain mustard mayonnaise and nibbed almonds on white bread, the picture of it is below. It was the most softest bread and the almonds were a nice touch to it as your typical chicken mayo sandwich would not have it!

In fact they were so good that when they came to refill our sandwiches we only asked for the chicken one!

My least favourite sandwich was the cucumber and cream cheese, just as I found the whole sandwich very dry and the bread was not as fresh as I expected it to be. 

The bread used for all the sandwiches were not very fresh, if I had to put a sell by date on them I would have said that they were to expire in 3 days, and they seemed like that had left the sandwiches out in the air for too long. 

The scones-

There were two scones presented which was the original scone and a chocolate one. I liked the original one the most, the chocolate one was ok and there was added chocolate chips in the scones which made it a nice little treat biting into one. The downside again to these scones were that they were not 5 star fresh. 

Golden egg I choose you!

This was a white chocolate egg, that I found very sweet, I didn't finish the whole thing off. 

This oompa loompa cupcake was also very dry, like it had been made 3 days ago!

My favourite from the sweets was this blueberry macaroon. It tasted how it looks! 

Towards the end of our afternoon tea, a member of staff dressed as willy wonka came over and told each of us to pick out a golden envelope from his hat, the envelope was sealed and the next time if we were to come here they would open the envelope and there would be a prize inside. For example free afternoon tea, a percentage off etc. 

My friend already had a golden envelope from the last time she had come here, which gave us 10% off this time round, unfortunately this was not taken off our bill and we had to remind the staff to take it off. 

We could take away the things we had left and more in a box. Though when I say more, they were not very generous with it! 

All in all I would not return back here. The food was disappointing and not fresh, and not worth the price. 

Atmosphere- 10/10

Service- 9/10

Food- 4/10

Chocolate Sushi Rating- 5/10

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Inspired Afternoon Tea

How better to relax than a nice spot of afternoon tea? Especially if that afternoon tea is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory inspired! Me and Nabs loved the idea- lets go on a time warp and travel back to the 90's!

This afternoon tea was held at the One Adwych Hotel. Upon arriving we were greeted and shown to the front desk where we were shown to our table.  It was a nice little touch to have the menus with pictures of the families!

First up were the sandwiches! 

The vegetarian option

Cucumber and Chive Creme Fraiche on Wholemeal Bread

Smoked Salmon and herb creme fraiche

Caramelised Onion and Goats Curd Tart 

Leak and Stilton Quiche 

Beef and Horseradish on Onion Bread 

Egg Mayonnaise with Watercress

Cheese

Time for the sweets! :)

Cocoa Bean Financier 

Scone with Clotted Cream and Strawberry Jam 

Cinnamon Swirl Brioche

Candy Floss- they had a secret flavour seasonaly which we were left to guess what flavour it was! 

Gingerbread Pops

Golden Chocolate Egg Filled with Vanilla Cheesecake and Mango Puree 

Chocolate Caramel Milk (Sammii's favourite- you can't go wrong with milkshake and the little glass bottle with the straw just took me back in time)

Nabs here :)

As you can see the sweet selection looked pretty impressive, just as something in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory ought to be! Some didn't taste as great as they looked: I wasn't too fond of the Gingerbread Pop as I found it too dry. My favourite had to be the Golden Chocolate Egg (a combination of chocolate, cheesecake and mango, can it get any better?!)

One thing I would suggest (and this goes for all afternoon teas), if you can only eat Halal Meat and are not a vegetarian, don't say that you want the vegetarian option. Definitely specify (whether you're booking online or via phone, they usually give you space when booking online to add extra details regarding what you can or can't eat) that you can't eat meat unless it's halal but also say that you can eat fish. I made the mistake of saying I wanted the vegetarian option, and wasn't given the Smoked Salmon and Herb Creme Fraiche. I was really dissapointed as I love fish, especially Salmon so don't make the same mistake that I did! I was given a cheese sandwich instead :((

All in all we had a lovely afternoon; the staff were very helpful and the seating area was very comfortable. I went away wanting to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory which is my absolute favourite adaption of Roald Dahl's classic book. I didn't like the 2005 Tim Burton adaption with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, I found it too serious and a little creepy, seriously lacking the magic the 1971 adaption had!

More Afternoon Tea posts to come :))

Atmosphere- 8/10

Service- 10/10

Food- 6/10

Chocolate Sushi Rating- 6/10

It's Always Tea Time

For my birthday we went to Sketch London for Afternoon Tea. Why, when there were so many other possibilities available, did we choose Sketch? After all, we had our pick from The Dorchester, Grosvenor House to The Ritz, which is considered by some to be the ultimate Afternoon Tea experience. Sketch London sits on Conduit Street, just off Regent Street, and within walking distance from Oxford Circus station. One of the things which set Sketch apart from the rest was the Glade room (See image B), where as the website advertises, we thought out afternoon tea was going to be. (More on this later).

When walking into Sketch you see that every room is different, every room is unique. For example, as image A shows, in the entrance hall there is a hopscotch painted in white on the floor. Yes, a hopscotch!

Image A

Image B

Image B shows the Glade Room. As I mentioned before, this is where my friends and I thought our Afternoon Tea was going to be but we were led by the lady into another room. Regarding the Glade room, as you can see from the image, the walls are painted like a forest from a fairy tale. Huge trees painted against a blue background and it looked like there were branches hanging down from the ceiling. The wooden furniture continues the forest like atmosphere. So I admit I was disappointed when we were led away from this wonderful room.

 

Image C

Image C shows The Gallery room in which our Afternoon tea was held. Although it was larger and more crowded than the Glade room the atmosphere was not affected. The unique and individual style of Sketch continues as you can see from the furniture and the wallpaper. No two walls, nor 2 chairs were the same. Each table had 3/4 chairs, there were wooden chairs, chairs with a stripy pattern... 

Bar in The Gallery.

The cost of a full afternoon tea with your own choice of tea was £34 per person. There was a large variety of tea's to choose from!

I am a fan of Audrey Hepburn with Breakfast at Tiffany's being one of my favourite movies so it was a nice surprise when I saw that my teapot came with a picture of Audrey Hepburn on it. I know it is just a teapot, but a beautiful teapot and tea set in my opinion makes the experience of drinking tea even better.

Our cake stand with a beautiful array of sandwiches, cakes and macaroons!!

Sultana Scones served with clotted cream, strawberry and apple jam and marshmallows.

Unfortunately, we left the best till last, so by the time we actually got around to eating our scones they were cold!! :( However, they were still delicious once they had a generous spread of clotted cream and jam on them but my advice to you would be eat the scones first! When they arrive they are warm, so don't wait for them to get cold..

Smoked Salmon and Jacob's Cream Sandwich - one of my favourite sandwiches!!

Cucumber, Ricotta and Broccoli Sandwich - one of my least favourite sandwiches.

Egg and Mayonnaise, Quail Egg and Caviar Sandwich.

Croque Monsieur with Comte Cheese. 
Though a little oily this was delicious, and I wouldn't have minded there being 2, 3 or 4 more of these...

Fig Tartlet.

Lemon and Basil Tartlet.

Chocolate and Mint Éclair.

This wonderful éclair had caramel cream inside it and as you can see from the picture had 3 silver crispy balls set on top of the dark chocolate.

Christmas Pudding Macaroon
 I usually love macaroons but I could not finish this macaroon, the Christmas pudding flavour was too much.

Coconut and White Chocolate Lollipop.

Tapioca Pudding with Pomegranate Coulis, Pistachio and Champagne Jelly- Sammii's favourite from the menu! I myself couldn't eat this because it had champagne in it.

Half way through our tea, a little surprise in the form of a birthday plate came out for me! Seems like my friends had told Sketch beforehand that it was my birthday :) One minute I was munching my way through one of the sandwiches and the next minute the waitress was walking towards my table with the birthday plate where she began to sing happy birthday to me along with my friends. It was a lovely surprise, and was the key moment in the whole afternoon tea experience for me.

To get to the toilets you had to walk up a white coloured flight of stairs, with the male toilets on the left hand side, and the female on the right. However, with the lack of any signs showing which was which, this was not made clear and luckily we just happened to walk up the right side.

Now if the glade room was like something out of a fairy tale, the toilets were like something out of a science-fiction movie. In fact, in my opinion, they strongly resembled alien pods.... what do you think? 

And to make things even more bizarre, while you do your business in the toilet a female voice sang Silent Night out to you! On top of that the toilet attendants were wearing French maid costumes! Strangeness coupled with wacky, it was sensational! 

Our waitress for the afternoon was lovely. She made the experience even more pleasant, always had a smile on and was happy to help! From the moment we started eating, you could tell that all the food was made from fresh top of the range ingredients- It was a delight to the taste buds and a feast for the eyes! Now I am not just talking about the food, but about the whole presentation of the table, the decor of the venue, the uniqueness of absolutely everything from the teapots to the toilets. To me an afternoon at Sketch was not only a delightful meeting over tea but an adventure of creativity. Sketch proves that it pays excellent attention to detail! Would I go back? Definitely!!

And to finish off our afternoon of tea... Our bill was delivered in a beautiful gold sandpaper-envelope! 

Atmosphere  9/10

Food             7/10

Service          9/10

Chocolatesushi Rating 9/10