Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tea
435
High Tea Lowdown
Afternoon Delight
London, England
No trip to London is complete without a
traditional English afternoon tea. The cups
must be porcelain, the sugar served in
lumps, and the tea brewed from loose
leaves, with nary a teabag in sight. To make
a proper meal of it, that pot of tea is supple-
mented with dainty sandwiches, scones, or
a few sweet cakes. Put Devonshire double
cream and jam on those scones, and you've
made it a “cream tea.”
Several London institutions will fulfill
your fantasy of high tea: For £25 and up,
you'll feel as though you've stepped into
an Edwardian country-house weekend,
though you must book your table weeks in
advance. At
Harrods
department store
(see ), the fourth-floor Georgian Room
is devoted to tea, as are the St. James
restaurant and Fountain Room at
Fort-
num & Mason's
(see ). Most of Lon-
don's large luxury hotels also offer a pricy
afternoon tea service; the most lavish are
at the Reading Room at
Claridge's
(55
Brook St., W1;
&
44/20/7409-6307
), The
Palm Court at the Ritz Hotel
(Piccadilly,
W1;
&
44/20/7493-8181
), the
Palm Court
at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel
(Pic-
cadilly, W1;
&
44/20/7499-6321
), or the
Conservatory at The Lanesborough
(Hyde Park Corner, SW1;
&
44/20/7259-
5599
). Teatime is a bit more discreet
and aristocratically dowdy at
Brown's
Hotel
(30 Albemarle St., W1;
&
44/20/
7493-6020
).
For a more colorful, less touristy after-
noon tea at a reasonable price, venture
beyond snooty Mayfair and Knightsbridge.
In Soho, arty locals lounge on cozy mis-
matched sofas at
The Blue Room
(3 Bate-
man St., W1;
&
44/20/7437-4827
) or hunch
over the tiny tables at cluttered, homey
Patisserie Valerie
(44 Old Compton St.;
&
44/20/7437-3466
). In Holborn, Lon-
don's old financial center,
The Old Bank
of England
(194 Fleet St.;
&
44/20/6430-
2255
) serves a quiet, intimate tea in a
tapestried chamber that could easily be
pompous, but isn't. Out in Chelsea, the
low-key
Tearoom at the Chelsea Physic
Garden
(66 Royal Hospital Rd., SW3;
&
44/
20/7352-5646
) is open only 4 days a week,
but on those days you can sip your tea
within the brick-walled confines of a
shaggy garden that has been prized as a
botanical laboratory since the height of
the British Empire. Or head up to north
London to find
High Tea of Highgate
(50
Highgate High St., N6;
&
44/20/83483162
),
a shabby-chic little tearoom selling organic
teas and home-baked pastries.
In Kensington, you can choose between
palaces—either the sprawling
Tea Palace
(175 Westbourne Grove, W11;
&
44/20/
7727-2600
), a serious tea emporium offer-
ing over 200 blends, or the 18th-century
garden pavilion of a real palace at
The
Orangery
(Kensington Palace, W8;
&
44/
20/7376-0239
), where you can sip a
cream tea amid mossy stone urns and
rows of potted orange trees.
(
Heathrow (24km/15 miles); Gatwick
(40km/25 miles)
L
$$$
Covent Garden Hotel,
10 Mon-
mouth St., Covent Garden (
&
800/553-
6674
in the U.S., or 44/20/7806-1000;
www.firmdale.com). $$
B + B Belgravia,
64-66 Ebury St., Belgravia (
&
800/682-
7808
in the U.S., or 44/20/7734-2353;
www.bb-belgravia.com).
