Tale As Old As Time Afternoon Tea, The Kensington Hotel, London
I'm pretty sure anyone who has a Facebook account would have seen the adverts for the Beauty and The Beast themed afternoon tea at The Kensington Hotel last year. The afternoon tea was originally due to be a limited time event, but due to the incredible response of people who wanted to experience this interesting twist on the traditional afternoon tea, it has at present, been extended.
In November 2017, we finally managed to get a reservation for the Tale As Old As Time Afternoon Tea, so we headed down to London with our other little sister to see what all the fuss was about.
Based in South Kensington, The Kensington Hotel itself is a beautiful building and the interior design is stunning. The Town House is a newly restaurant that plays host to the Afternoon Tea and can be accessed by its own entrance on Manson Place.
The Tale As Old As Time afternoon tea is currently priced at £42 per person or £54.50 with an added class of Champagne. (however, when we went in November 2017, it was £35 per head and £45 with champagne). Naturally, we decided to go for the Champagne option and were extremely excited to get started on our first course, the savouries.
Left to right, the savouries consisted of beef ragu & saffron arancini, cheese souffle and a bite size venison pie (with a few beautifully places rose petals for added effect!). For me, normally the savoury section of an afternoon tea is my least favourite because I have a super sweet tooth. However, the saviours at Town House were superb and I could have quite happily had another round or two of these instead of sandwiches.
And on the topic of sandwiches, the Town House decided not to move too far away from tradition in terms of its offering. The selection of sandwiches offered were as expected and included the old classic cucumber and cream cheese, salmon and crème fraiche, egg mayonnaise & cress (which I never really understood as a ‘classic’ afternoon tea sandwich because I really don’t feel the love for these) and finally chicken with cranberry. The afternoon tea also included a little sweet brioche with apricot preserve and a chocolate pot, which was a nice little addition to the standard sandwich.
But on to the pièce de résistance…the sweets, which is, lets face it, what made this afternoon tea so popular for Disney fans all over the world. I absolutely adored the chocolate clock tart in the shape of Cogsworth. He was ALMOST too adorable to eat, but alas it wouldn’t be a very good food blog if we didn’t eat everything put in front of us, would it? Cogsworth defiantly stole the show in terms of his looks and he was a rather tasty cutie I have to say.
The next item to tempt me in was the Vanilla and gold jelly pot. This was beautifully presented in a little glass pot with a rose petal in the base and the serving suggestion was to pair this with a cream that was kept safe by Mrs Potts. The combination was an interesting one, and although it looked impressive, it wasn’t to my personal taste, mainly because of the textures that were being combined.
We can’t talk about Mrs Potts and not then move on to little Chip. Chip’s role in the afternoon tea was to host the white chocolate mouse or ‘grey stuff’ as the film calls it. Although it may have not looked the most appealing dish, lived up to it’s expectation of being delicious!
The spiced snowball macaroon to me was a really lovely way to show that someone had really put a lot of time and effort into this afternoon tea and what each item represents. As you know, Belle and Beast have a snow ball fight in the film and this is significant in their relationship forming and growing. So for me, this was a really nice addition to the sweets.
The final item on the list was the Speculoos dress marzipan biscuit which we almost didn’t get because the waiting staff forget to add it in. Luckily, they were very apologetic when they realised and quickly rectified this. And what can I say, you can’t really go wrong when it comes to marzipan and biscuit can you?
All in all, we had a lovely experience at the Town House. The savouries for me were the tastiest part of the afternoon tea, but the sweets were the real showstoppers in terms of their appearance. I think the Town House have really put a lot of thought into the presentation of everything which makes a huge difference if you are a diehard Disney fan or a little girl or boy who loves the Beauty and The Beast. I would say it is more of a ‘one off’ experience rather than a ‘oh I have to go back there’ situation. The staff were also fantastic with children which, given the actual clientele this afternoon is most likely aimed at, is really important.
If I had small children who love Beauty and the Beast, I would defiantly say this a magical experience worth doing. It is a little on the pricey side for little ones, but I think for a super special treat or birthday etc, the excitement and joy it brings, will far outweigh the cost.
All pictures taken & own by SistersDineOut
