It probably won’t surprise you to know that I have a soft spot for afternoon tea. On one hand, it is obviously kind of Tory and quite Paddington-Bear-arm-in-arm-with-Captain-Tom-coded, I know, but on another very real hand: little cakes. So of course when my mom was visiting London recently, afternoon tea seemed like a girly and cute way to pass the time*.
On this occasion our ~venue was The Biltmore Hotel in Mayfair, which is one of those places where Bentleys are just randomly parked up at the curb outside as if that’s normal, like Vauxhall Astras up the back of Morrisons. Inside, everything is pink and purple, and the tea room itself looks like a 4D rendering of an interior from the type of criminally expensive doll’s house, that, as a child, I would hopelessly circle in the Argos catalogue every year at Christmas (the fourth dimension, btw, is scones).
We were there to try the hotel’s new springtime afternoon tea, which, to be honest, was quite a lot like most other afternoon teas I’ve experienced, but lovely nevertheless**. The meal followed the typical AT setup – teas and bubbly wine (in this case Nyetimber Champagne which was very sweet but also very easy drinking), followed by little baby Borrower sarnies, followed by warm scones with cream, jam and honey. The pièce de résistance, at the end, was a very impressive fever dream of a dessert plate, which featured, among other things, a toadstool crafted partially from Rice Crispies. The human mind is limitless.
To rewind a bit, before any food came out, we were shown to a table set at a very plush sofa, and had the setup explained to us. Then, we were given a choice of teas from a long menu – my mom went with English Breakfast, and I had white tea with peony – and poured two massive glasses of Champagne (on the menu for £20 a glass so it’s a good thing that one serving was large enough to sip throughout the tea). Then came the first round, which was sandwiches, on one of those sweet little towers that you only get at afternoon tea (imagine how much more enjoyable every meal would be if you got it served like that? “Your potato smiley faces depression dinner, ma’am?”).
There were a bunch of different sandwiches, but the highlights included a smoked salmon bun, a tomato, mozzarella and rocket focaccia (small but still as oily as I like), a mini cottage pie (my mom’s favourite, and a big 10/10 from me too), and a little crab tartlet thing with caviar***. Sometimes with afternoon tea, considering the prices of these things, I do think you occasionally get slightly rogered on the savouries, but as a lover of both small things and variety, I thought there was enough going on here that I felt full enough to worry about where the next two courses would go. That’s value, baby.
Next up was the scones – you get three each as standard and there’s an option to ask for more if you want to get freaky with it. There’s one plain scone, one with dried cranberries and orange (a much nicer, brighter alternative to raisin ones, in my opinion), and finally and most brilliantly, one with white chocolate which, given the freshness with which they come to the table, is slightly melted. They come with cream and jam and honey, as I mentioned, and they were great. It’s kind of impossible for a warm scone not to be great, same as warm bread or warm, wrapped-up chips. They’re just good. I have, admittedly, however, been thinking about that white chocolate one a lot – it was maybe the best thing I ate all day.
Finally, after a bit of necessary rest, we were presented with a spring-themed dessert plate which was quite a lot more psychedelic than I was expecting. The Biltmore Hotel: I was not familiar with your game.
Most traditional-looking was a rose-shaped cake, flavoured with chocolate orange and hazelnut ganache (not a chocolate orange fan but this is class); the rest of them genuinely resembled designs from t-shirts at a Grateful Dead concert (complimentary). There was a little honey and lavender mousse encased in chocolate shaped like a bee with its hive, a lily with white chocolate leaves on a base filled with rhubarb cremeaux, and key lime and jasmine mousse, and finally – and most notably – an undeniably phallic but also undeniably tasty toadstool with the aforementioned Rice Crispy and wafer base.
I was too stuffed with scones at this point to get everything down, but in the interests of journalism I tried them all, because I am very brave. There was a lot of mousse which became a little bit samey at points, but I loved the delicate little textural touches, like the wafer and the Crispies and the tracing paper-thin lily leaves.
By the time we left the tea room – totally at our own pace, which I always appreciate – I felt exceptionally well-fed and was also experiencing a minor sugar crash, and this is exactly how I think you should feel when you’re leaving an afternoon tea. We headed to the South Bank to drink more fizzy wines, stomachs lavishly lined with scones, thick cream, and miniature fancies, and the image of the toadstool dessert forever impressed on our memories.
* Moms love afternoon tea same way dads love the thumbs up emoji, talking about traffic, and calling Gary Neville a knob.
** My favourite AT in London, if you are interested, without a doubt is the one at Sketch. Easily one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever, ever been in, super imaginative dishes, and just a ridiculously good treat that is worth every single penny. Plus you get to do a selfie in the best bogs in the world.
*** Because if you go to any sort of “premium” restaurant “experience” in London in 2025 and there’s no caviar, you’re legally allowed to phone the police.
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill and illustrated by Lucy Letherland. Weekly reviews are free to read every Thursday, and you can follow us on Instagram here, but if you’d like to see more, you can subscribe for £5 a month or £50 a year, to get extra content every second Sunday.
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