Tea at the Ritz

The Ritz London, 150 Piccadilly, London W1J 9BR

Afternoon tea is a quintessentially British tradition so, as part of T’s birthday, we decided to treat ourselves and after 3 months waiting, we finally had our grand afternoon tea at the Ritz (May 2011). Tea is served five times a day; 11.30am, 1.30pm, 3.30pm, 5.30pm and 7.30pm. We went for the 11.30 sitting on a Saturday.

Traditional Afternoon Tea (£40 per person) 

Afternoon tea at the Ritz takes place in the Palm Court – a wonderfully grand and elegant room, beautifully furnished with a definite ‘wow’ factor. Although spectacular, it was much smaller than we had expected with probably less than 20 tables altogether (mainly for 2-4 people, though there were two larger groups of about 6-8). Nonetheless, beautiful.

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The Ritz London: Palm court

It is recommended that you arrive 10 minutes earlier but thanks to the very reliable London Underground (!!), we were just on time (if only a few minutes late). Despite this, we were warmly greeted and shown to our seats. We were seated by the room’s entrance, not ideal but fine.

Palm court: our table

Condiments: clotted cream, strawberry jam and sugar cubes

Once seated, we looked through the menu which offered a wide selection of tea. You can try as many teas as you like, but with the large volume of tea in each pot, we only tried 3 different types of overall. To start, we ordered the elderflower tea and the ceylon orange pekoe tea and later the rose congou tea. The tea arrived quickly and was served in very old fashioned silverware. Unfortunately one of the teapots was broken, so whenever we attempted to pour tea into the cup, it would leak all over the table. But once we informed the waiter, they were quick to replace teapot and subtely placed a napkin over the tea soaked tablecloth. Interestingly enough, he explained that the silverware was more than 100 years old so was prone to some problems!

Once our tea arrived, they bought a 3 tier cake stand. The top contained pastries, the middle was empty (for the scones and fruit cake which would arrive later) and the bottom was sandwiches.



Cake stand with pastries (top) and sandwiches (bottom)



Pastries: (clockwise) fruit tart, hazelnut macaroon, cream pastry with icing, some kind of hazelnut mousse, chocolate cake and a maple syrup cupcake



Sandwiches: Cheddar Cheese Sandwich with Chutney on Onion Bread, Scottish Smoked Salmon with Lemon Butter on Rye Bread, Chicken Breast Sandwich with Horseradish Cream, Cucumber Sandwich with Cream Cheese, Dill, and Chives on Caraway Seed Bread, Egg Mayonnaise Sandwich with Chopped Shallots and Watercress, Ham Sandwich with Grain Mustard Mayonnaise on White Bread

The cheese sandwich was exceptionally yummy, really delicious, but the rest was rather mediocre. We weren’t particularly keen on the chicken sandwich which was too creamy/buttery for our liking and the egg mayonnaise sandwich was quite bland. The pastries looked lovely and tasted ok, but not as nice as we expected.



Hazelnut mousse



The scones arrived: Plain and raisin scones, with two slices of fruit cake.

The scones were nice. They had a softer and lighter texture than the typical texture of scones you might buy from Sainsbury! The scones went very well with the jam and clotted cream. You can request more food, but it was enough for the two of us and we were definitely stuffed by the end of it. Although the food was slightly disappointing, the whole atmosphere and service was amazing. Throughout the sitting, there was a pianist playing both classical and contemporary music and requests could be made. Actually, due to the size of the room, the piano was just outside the Palm Court which might make it difficult to hear amongst the chatter if you were further inside the room. So actually being seated near the edge was quite fortunate as we had no problem enjoying the music!



Pianst in the background - adds to the atmosphere of the Ritz.

Overall, we had a very nice time. The service was wonderful - the waiters weren't snobbish at all (which you might expect from a top hotel) and the whole grand atmosphere was...well, grand! We had a lovely time there, truly a once in a life time experience.

Atmosphere 9.5/10

Service 9/10

Food 6.5/10

Recommended? Yes, definitely