Afternoon at Fortnum and Mason

 

In connection with my Summer vacation in London I decided, that I would enjoy afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason, before going to the afternoon tea course, so I knew how a classic afternoon tea session should look and taste like.

When I first saw the cake stand I felt, that it look of nothing. The waiter kept mentioning, that if I wanted more, I should just ask and they would bring more sandwiches, scones etc. At the end I was completely full in my stomach without asking for extra supplies.

The sandwiches was a selection of:

• Fortnum´s smoked salmon
• Coronation chicken
• Cucumber with mint & cream cheese
• Honey roast ham with grain mustard
• Rare breed hen´s egg mayonnaise and English cress

all in all the sandwiches are quiet standard in taste with some fancy description, so more air than taste.

The two scones (plain and fruit version) was served with clotted cream and a completely untouched jam of strawberry jam and blueberry jam. This was quiet lavishing with two times 75 g of jam. I actually consider to bring the unused jam with me, but my suitcase was quiet full at this time. I was not served any lemon curd.

The four smaller individual patesserie were great both visual and in taste. A small piece of chocolate cake with chocolate top layer. Choux pastry with raspberry flavoured filling and red icing top. Macarron bottom with tropical filling covered by gelled decorated with coconut flakes. Short bread as bottom layer berry flavoured cream decorated with chocolate flakes and small corn flakes.
The patisserie taste was perfect in my opinion with the look, decoration details combined with some great taste and texture differences.



After this cake stand you can still ask for one or more slices cake from the cake table, here I got a slice of a great tasting carrot cake, which contained sucat, which is actually quiet unusual.

So instead of spending money on lunch I decided to pay 50 £ for this afternoon tea. It was very stylish and the service was great, so I will give this dining experience a total of 4 stars. The minus is, that there is added a service charge of 12.5% on top of 44 £ stated in the menu card. In my opinion, why not put the real price instead of surprising people, when they get the receipt with an extra 12.5% on top ?