Over the festive period, my friend and I decided we would meet up in London for Afternoon Tea at the end of January – mainly as a) we needed something to look forward too as January is the most depressing month in the WHOLE year especially when you live in England and b) we just needed a few hours of giggles with each other to keep ourselves semi sane till we hit February!
I have found this really great website – www.afternoontea.co.uk (+AfternoonTea.co.uk) – great name for a website me thinks, and they have these fantastic deals on Afternoon Tea including Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair, London during the month of January – 25% discount off the Traditional or Champagne Afternoon Tea which is a pretty amazing deal for such a great venue. You need to book through the www.afternoontea.co.uk website to get the discount, I did and I can say its safe and secure to do so!
This wasn’t my first experience of Brown’s Afternoon Tea, G and I had ventured to have Tea here the year before last when we first started our little Afternoon Tea challenge of let’s visit all the posh hotels in London for Tea (trust me when I say there is never going to be an exercise challenge in our relationship EVER!) but I digress.
Our previous visit was wonderful, couldn’t fault it other than we visited during chocolate week and all the pastries were infused with chocolate which to be honest isn’t my favourite thing but I ate a lot of scones to compensate for not eating my fair share of the pastries.
Brown’s Hotel is a pretty special establishment in London and its currently celebrating its 175th Anniversary – Happy Anniversary!
A little bit of history about the hotel – Brown’s was the first hotel in London, Alexander Graham Bell made the first UK telephone call and Kipling wrote the Jungle Book while staying at the hotel to name just a few things.
Afternoon Tea is served in the English Tea Room which is one of the cosiest and quaintest places to have Afternoon tea in London, wood panelling, roaring fires and a piano being softly played in the back ground. Softly, yes softly (we love softly – unlike the Savoy or The Langham where it was blaring in our ears like we were at rock concert!)
When we were seated at our table, the waitress provided the menus for our tea choice and also advised that the gluten free Afternoon tea was ready and that my guests just had to decide on their Afternoon tea choices. A great start!
The sandwiches were fantastic, a great selection of fillings and the gluten free pastries were fabulous.
The gluten free scones were sultana scones and you didn’t seem to get a choice between plain or fruit. This didn’t bother me but just a heads up if you plan to go. They were extremely flat as well however they were cooked through and were very tasty. (The first photo is the gluten free scones and the second photo is the gluten loaded scones)
My friend took the words right out of my mouth – why are gluten free scones so bloomin’ heavy! I eat two and feel like I have eaten a ten course meal!
This is a great place for just drinking tea and its where G and I get our tea from as after our first visit I now always buy the Brown’s blend of tea for home – a rich malty flavour, there is nothing else to compare it with it’s just that good!
We did have an issue with the Afternoon tea – I asked for a few more gluten free sandwiches, I was provided normal sandwiches which I ate half of one before realising – it took three attempts to get a refill of the gluten free sandwiches and I ended up with severe cramps when leaving. Just more care is required with special dietary customers.
Overall I really like Brown’s Hotel for Afternoon Tea and would recommend it as a totally relaxing place to enjoy tea in beautiful cosy English surroundings.
We had a great afternoon and there is nothing better than leaving a stunning hotel with a full tummy for a walk through the snow flakes on a Sunday afternoon!
xx
