Our friend Katie is getting married in a couple of weeks, and so to celebrate her with a little mini hen situation, we whisked her into central London to enjoy a beautiful Fortnum & Mason’s afternoon tea.
First off, a disclaimer. We visited Fortnum & Mason during the height of Christmas shopping fever, so the entire store was basically completely overrun by Christmas shoppers. It was exceptionally busy, including in the tea salon.
Once we had battled through the throngs and been seated however, our seating area was an oasis of calm. We looked through the menus – I was surprised to find out that the tea salon offers multiple different afternoon tea packages, which is great – and I went for the classic afternoon tea with champagne.
While the service was quite slow (likely due to the aforementioned Christmas rush), it didn’t really matter because we were there to celebrate Katie and enjoy the experience – we weren’t in any particular rush.
When we ordered, our waiter told us that we could have as many sandwiches and scones as we wanted. I really liked that she mentioned that upfront, because when its not clear, it always gets a bit awkward if you want to ask for a sandwich refill.
The food overall was very delicious – all the sandwiches were incredible, and the scones were perfect, and came with a wide range of accompaniments.
I would say for the little cakes that I had expected a bit more precision in their appearance, but that they tasted incredible. My particular favourite was a honey cake with some sot of delicious piped cream on top.
Overall, I would highly recommend a visit to the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, and I certainly would like to go back when its a little less busy to have a second experience!
