Afternoon Tea Diaries | LONDON ELIZABETH HOTEL

London Elizabeth Hotel

As a lover of tea, tiny sandwiches and posh hotels, a trip to London for Afternoon tea was perfect. I booked a table for two at the London Elizabeth hotel for my mums birthday and thought I'd share the experience. I want to start a series of these, traveling around to find the perfect AFT location, and today was a good start. 

The Menu

We arrived 20 minutes early and were seated in a quite small room with about 15 odd tables inside. The tables were neatly presented, and we were at the back, in the corner of the room. We were then offered prosecco, which we declined and instead were offered soft drinks, including fresh orange juice. We were shown a large box of all the teas you can imagine and picked English Breakfast Tea. 

Time for Tea

In each 'review' type post I want to point a few bits that I think could have been changed. Here was the first. There were three of us. I had already paid for two, and at the time of booking, was told adding a third person who pays on the day was not a problem. However when serving the teas, we were given a very small jug of milk (the word jug isn't one I'd choose to use but I can't think of a smaller word...). This lasts approx 30 seconds between three people. I've decided to get the negatives out of the way in a kind of list: 1- The milk situation. 2- Lipstick on my mums orange juice glass before she could even touch it. 3- ALOT of cakes and only a few sandwiches (literally three sandwiches each, and no one likes the ham and mustard one...) 4- Some of the cakes are far too sweet and rich (but that's just my opinion). 5- It was super hard to get any of the staff's attention. For a small room you'd think they would check on their guests at least once. We had to pretty much shout at one of the men to try and get the bill. 6- When we eventually asked for a second milk jug, the man took the one off of the table next to us which he was cleaning after a large group who had just left, said it was unused and put it on our table. Although untouched by the previous people, I found tiny black hairs floating on top which I fished out with a spoon. I know full well that if we had asked him to get a new one, he'd have brought back the same jug anyway, but I still don't think this was appropriate. 

Moving swiftly on from the negative... When the food arrived I was pleased. The cream cheese sandwich was lovely and I could happily eat another cheese and tomato one. But the mustard (assuming it was mustard...) and ham looked awful, so I quickly passed up on that one. The next layer were the scones, macarons and some other nibbles. These were nice enough, with the scones being quite soft when eaten with the jam and cream. I have, however, realised I am not a lover of macarons. The brownies were extremely rich and but nevertheless, this layer was good. (Also a fan of the Cath Kidston cake stand). On the top were some tarts that I'm guessing were home made, a lemon cake slice (literally finger sized) and some other bits that I tried and don't think I enjoyed enough to remember (God I'm harsh ay). 

The platter!

I actually did enjoy myself! The hotel was very nice inside and I would probably go back again at some point. The hotel is opposite Hyde Park, so perfect for a summer day trip!