Afternoon Tea at the Connaught, London, UK

Booking a Sunday afternoon tea in London with a one-day notice is almost mission impossible. I finally managed to book a table for two at the Connaught in Mayfair, where I had already enjoyed the brunch at Hélène Darroze's restaurant.

In the Espelette salon (front room by the window on the left), where tea is served, time seems to slow down, and allows you to eat endlessly, tiny bite by tiny bite (which eventually piles up to the calorie equivalent of half a cow).

This time, I did not fall in the scone trap. For those who have never experienced afternoon tea, remember that a scone is made of 4/5 flour and 1/5 butter, and imagine yourselves eating a very compact piece of this bread with clotted cream (a Cornish specialty halfway between butter and cream), wash it down with 2 liters of tea, witness you stomach expanding and then you will understand what the scone trap is.

The £35 afternoon tea includes finger sandwiches, an assortment of pastries, scones with clotted cream and jams, cakes and tea. Add £10 to £30 for a glass of Champagne.

Finger sandwiches

Chicken with Granny Smith apple, Greek yoghurt and chives

Cucumber and dill cream

Smoked salmon and wasabi cream Free range egg with home-made mayonnaise and watercress

Pastries

Clotted cream

Baba in an orange and passion fruit jelly

Financier biscuit, apricot mousse and orange blossom marshmallowRaspberry and pistachio tart
Upside down blueberry cake

Poppy and Strawberry “choux”

Hazelnut Dacquoise, chocolate ganache and salty caramel moussePeaches flavoured with verbena “Charlotte”

Plain and apricot scones

Christine Ferber (the Queen of confitures) jams:

Raspberry with violet

Peach

Passion fruit

Honey

Cakes

Rose and Raspberry Cake
Chocolate Cake

The range of finger sandwiches was not large but they proved quite tasty. Their size however was slightly too large, particularly the fat-finger eggs and mayo ones. The choice of pastries was brilliant, and almost as delightful for the eyes as the fantastic fancies from the Prêt-à-Portea at the Berkeley. After all that, we had no space left for the cakes and had them packed in a doggy bag (yes, a Mayfair hotel doggy bag, and we were not the only ones to ask for it).

The Afternoon Tea at the Connaught is definitely in my top 3 in London, along with Brown's and Berkeley's. But I have not tried Ritz's yet.

Cost: 35GPB to 65GBP