I was super excited to go to an afternoon tea at the luxurious Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, not least because the hotel is lovely, but because the afternoon tea there is excitingly fashion themed called Pret-a-Portea! Cute!
Putting two of my favourite things together sounded like a no brainer, so I enlisted my friend Angelica and off we went to sample the Berkeley’s delights!
The first thing that I want to call out about this afternoon tea is that the table felt very welcoming – they had made us name cards which felt very luxe – I’d never seen that before at an afternoon tea!
We opened the beautiful menu to read what was on offer for the tea. Aside from the usual massive selection of teas and drinks, there were a number of sections of food that we were getting through.
The waiter came by and whilst we were looking at the menu, he showed us an accompanying brochure that was styled in the vein of a fashion magazine that described all of the fashion looks that inspired the afternoon tea. It was amazing to see the looks that we knew the food would resemble, and we got to keep the brochure so that we could compare them when the sweet stuff came.
After our drinks were served, it was time for the savoury treats.
First, two small savoury bites: A beautiful smoked and charred duck breast on brioche bread with a gooseberry chutney. Then, a tomato and asparagus tartare on sourdough. They were both absolutely delicious. Second, a selection of sandwiches – nothing too out of the ordinary, just beautiful classics like smoked salmon, chicken, egg + mayo etc. Each sandwich was served with a different type of bread and I personally loved the onion bread that the salmon was paired with.
The sandwiches were also refillable, which is my favourite afternoon tea feature. I always always go for a couple more knowing full well I still have a lot of eating to go 😅 (but I’m never sorry!)
After the savoury stuff, we got to sample the sweet things! This is where the true magic of the fashion theme came to life as we got to compare the delicious confections in front of us with the real-life fashions on the pages.
The sweet treats were absolutely beautiful, and I only wish I had taken more photos. In terms of the taste, there were definitely some that I preferred more than others – I particularly enjoyed the chocolate cylinder layered with Victoria sponge and strawberry jam, with intricately piped lime button cream flowers, that paid homage to Michael Kors’ SS22 handbag. I also LOVED the Lanvin-inspired floral platform chocolate biscuit.
Finally, if that wasn’t enough, we ended off with the most beautiful scones (both fruit and plain) with a selection of jams and clotted cream.
Suffice it to say, I ended this tea absolutely stuffed and we actually had to take a few things home in a doggy bag.
All in all, I definitely recommend this afternoon tea for its great service, and the yummy and generous tea. The fashion theme definitely added a unique twist to it which was a lot of fun, although I will say that some of the fashion interpretations were a bit looser than I thought, and a couple of them could have had a bit more finesse. But those are small quibbles.
Thanks to The Berkeley for a really yummy afternoon!
