The Kensington Hotel - Afternoon Tea, London

I love afternoon tea. Anything with a bit of tradition seems to make me smile, and if that tradition involves food then I'm more than happy! After last Christmas, 'afternoontea.co.uk' had a January sale on and I thought it would be lovely to spend a rainy afternoon in London sampling the delights of the Kensington Hotel's personal selection of sandwiches, scones and cakes.

The offer was a 25% off deal - which is quite common, so I would suggest always looking for offers on line when you can as it could save you quite a bit of money...usually £28 pp, this was reduced to £21 which softened the blow on my card considerably!

The Kensington hotel is situated on Queens Gate in the notoriously grand area of South Kensington, and has recently reopened after undergoing a £20 million renovation. The hotel itself is actually quite difficult to find as it is made up of four townhouses, and therefore matches the look of the street perfectly so doesn't particularly stand out, but once you enter the reception area, the staff are more than happy to show you to the drawing room - where the afternoon tea is served.

Drawing Room, The Kensington Hotel

The drawing room itself is very luxurious, complete with chandeliers, oak wood flooring, Persian rugs and a roaring fireplace (perfect for a cold winters afternoon). We both had high hopes for the afternoon tea as after doing a bit of research we realised that the chef had a Michelin star - and, although not eating in the restaurant, we were expecting some pretty awesome creations!

Our Sandwich selection

First the sandwiches arrived, and they looked as pretty as a picture. There were five finger sandwiches stacked up as you can see in the picture above and these included: Honey roast ham and redcurrant butter (tomato bread), Scottish smoked salmon horseradish creme fraiche (granary bread), egg mayonnaise with watercress (white bread), cucumber and cream cheese (caraway seed bread) and roast chicken with whole grain mustard (onion bread). They were all delicious, and I thought very inventive both using a range of traditional combinations, and adding twists with the different kinds of bread. I think my favourite was the chicken, but I also loved the tomato bread which came with the ham and redcurrant butter - it packed lots of flavour and was also extremely striking in colour.

Gin and Tonic Sorbet

Next came the gin and tonic sorbet. This was a lovely touch, and did what it was supposed to by cleansing the palette for the sweeter treats which were about to follow. My only negative was there was quite a lot of it and it was quite citrus-y which kind of totally nummed my mouth and left the tea tasting a little odd.



 Scones (with Cornish clotted cream, winterberry jam and lemon and passion fruit curd)

Next out were the mini scones. One plain and one Raisin for each of us. They came all wrapped up in a cloth parcel, which meant they kept nice and warm whilst we were finishing our sorbet, and were served with a passion fruit and lemon curd (absolutely divine) and a winterberry jam, with Cornish clotted cream. All components in this section of the meal were absolutely delicious, the scones were buttery, yet still crumbly, and the fact the cream melted slightly when it was spread on was great!

The finale should always be the posh cakes! This is when the chef can really come into their own and make sweet treats almost looking too good to eat, and I have to say, I'm very happy the Kensington Hotel opted to serve these on a tiered cake stand (I was slightly upset that the other bits hadn't arrived traditionally like this so I was pretty relieved when I was proved wrong with the final 'course' of the meal.

Cake Stand

 

We had 7 different treats to choose from, so decided to split each one down the middle so I could try them all! On the top there was a blueberry cheesecake, a hazelnut and caramel pyramid and a lemon tart, and below a chocolate and raspberry mousse, bakewell tart, coconut panna cotta with passionfruit jelly and a strawberry, lavender and lemon mille feuille.

By this point we were quite stuffed, and found the mousse, and the pyramid - which was kind of a nutty creamy cheese-cakey thing, far too heavy (however loved the touch with popping candy). The other bites though were lovely, especially the panna cotta which was so light and tart which cut through the over powering sweetness of the other choices!

The service was excellent, and the staff very knowledgeable about the choice of teas. All of the teas I tried were outstanding with some really interesting choices (and another perk is you could choose more than one). One of the ones my boyfriend opted for on the day was a smokey one wasn't to my taste particularly but he seemed to enjoy it, and you could also opt for coffee if tea wasn't your thing which I thought was great.

Pouring our tea!

All in all afternoon tea and the Kensington hotel is something I'll remember for a very long time, and for the right reasons! You can tell the amount of detail that has been put into each taster, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My only tip (as mentioned before) is to try and find a deal or discount on line!