Your table at The Goring awaits

26 June 2015 marks National Cream Tea Day and in August each year there is  National Afternoon Tea Week (it was 11-17 August in 2014).

If you’re like me, you need no excuse to enjoy such delights, but I shall be getting into the spirit of things regardless.

For the uninitiated, a proper afternoon tea gets you tea (of course), dainty sandwiches (take it or leave it), scones, jam, clotted cream (heaven), slice of cake (tempting), and then more cake and yet more cake (overload)!  Optional extras include champagne (perfect) and possibly a hot dish such as welsh rarebit or kedgeree (only necessary if you haven’t eaten in the last month).  Personally, I find a full afternoon tea a bit too much and it’s teh cream tea bit that I REALLY like.

If you’re in London and fancy treating yourself to the full sensory overload experience, here are some of my favourites:
Goring Hotel, Victoria, £42.50 or £52.50 – the setting here is perfect, sunny yellows and white tablecloths inside and there’s an attractive terrace overlooking the garden;
Diamond Jubilee Teas Salon, Fortnum and Mason  Piccadilly, £40-£48 – one of the largest selections of tea I’ve seen in a newly renovated salon on the fourth floor – for me, the room is too big and lacking in atmosphere (I actually prefer to take the simpler offering of tea and scones in The Fountain on the ground floor, £12.50);
Palm Court, The Ritz, Piccadilly, £47-69 – a spectacular setting in a famous hotel.

Further afield in Hertfordshire, this quaint, vintage tea room in a small English village won’t disappoint:
Westmill Tea Rooms, near Buntingford, Herts, £17.50 – perfect village setting, friendly welcome and a great range of cakes if you don’t want scones (the lemon drizzle is to die for).

And I can’t omit Manchester:
Opus One, Radisson Blu Edwardian, Peter Street, £18.95-£27.95 – lovely setting in a glass fronted room looking onto the street, and if you’re looking for something different, try the Gentleman’s afternoon tea with Yorkshire pudding and pork pie in addition to the scones.

If you are planning to indulge, do book in advance.  For the London hotels, in particular, you may well need to book weeks or even months in advance.

Inviting terrace at The Goring

Updated 26 June 2015