Brown's
30 Albemarle Street
W1S 4BP
Date of Last Visit: Saturday, 17 July 2010
The Victims: Muna, Lee, Jen, Tracey
The Damage: £50 each but we paid for Muna because she is having a baby!
The Background: Muna is having a baby! So we're throwing her a baby shower, as all good American women do. Dressed in our Sunday finest (even though it's Saturday and even though I was probably a bit more casual than I meant to be), we converged on Brown's for some tea and more importantly, CAKE.
The Entrance: We're shown to the tea room which reminds me of the tea room at The Berkeley. It's a slightly masculine place and could easily double as bar space. This is fine with me, but I just thought I'd mention it.
They have salt beef sandwiches. Ingenious! I love these so much, I ask for another plate of just salt beef. The salmon is also quite nice. But really, I focused on the salt beef. And skipped the egg mayo.
We all agree that the scones are amazingly good. Moist. Dense, but still fluffy at the same time if that's possible. Rich. We ask for more of these as well. I limit myself to two and go back to the salt beef.
And of course, the sweets. I limited myself to two mango and passion fruit macarons, which were lovely, and a lemon and polenta cake, which was also fantastic. The cake had a knob of lemon cream in the middle, and that raspberry couldn't have been more perfect. When I got home that day, I googled lemon polenta cake, determined to get around to making one at some point.
The Verdict: Loved tea at Brown's. I've only done high tea three times, but this surpasses The Ritz and The Berkeley in my memory.
13 comments
I LOVE Browns, their afternoon tea is by far the best in town. What fun, hope you gals had a great time 🙂
Doood(ette), have you not had Ottolenghi’s lemon polenta cake…three letters…OMG.
Mrs. LF had tea at Brown’s and thoguht it nice as well, especially the sweets.
Best,
LF
Dude! I totally have had Ottolenghi's version. It is very good. But you know, I think this little sucker was perfect!
Ok another afternoon tea for the list – particularly like the sound of the scones and the lemon potato cake
I haven’t been to tea at a hotel in ages, but when I first moved to London, I went to the Claridge’s tea multiple times bc it was so good (and I was constantly hosting visitors). If you squeeze in another tea sometime soon, try Claridge’s and let me know how it compares to Brown’s (which I still must try).
Good on you for hosting a baby shower. I’ve thrown a couple here, too (never so posh as tea at Brown’s, though), and the most enthusiastic attendees are usually American. What’s so uniquely American about showering a friend with gifts, I wonder.
I was anxious to see your verdict on Browns. When I visited in February, I was determined to have high tea and knew I only had time (and budget) for one. I googled ‘best tea in London’ and some English tea association website had named Browns as best tea in 2009. It was a little hard to book last minute, but we got in. I went with my husband, who was decidedly not into going to high tea, but he was a good sport.
You didn’t mention the cake trolley. Did they not have it? When we were there the cake trolley came by with a choice of two cakes, a vanilla pound cake or a fruitcake. I’d never seen a cake trolley at tea before. My husband was impressed with the amount of food (and that you could order more sandwiches!) so it was definitely enough for men. We didn’t have dinner that day, we were so full.
Great photos!
Ah yes, definitely did the cake trolley. I think I may have a photo, but it's not so good. Looking forward to meeting you in Chicago at some point soon! -Krista
Those sweets look amazing. And thanks for the recommendation of Ottolenghi’s lemon polenta cake – that’s definitely on my list!
Oh, I love Brown’s, especially the Donovan Bar, and agree about the afternoon tea. I wrote a guide to the best afternoon tea in London, which you can see below:
http://bonvivantliving.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/londons-best-afternoon-tea-venues/
Thanks,
Emyr
Awesome ! Thanks for the tips!
Ah totally forgot to mention the piano player at Browns! He was awesome!
I love tea at Brown’s. I went there for a Christmas afternoon tea last year because they are one of the rare hotels that don’t force you to pay a premium for mince pies and carol singers during December. The best way to recover after a frazzled, desperate final Christmas shop.
Tea at Brown is always great!
Comments are closed.