Tea at The Berkeley

The Berkeley Hotel
Wilton Place
SW1X 7RL
Tel: 0207 201 1619

Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The Victim: Jen

The Damage: Unknown. Jen paid! (Well, actually, Uncle Bob paid. Thanks Uncle Bob!)

The Background: A few years ago, I took Julie,  my Mom, and her friend Mary for tea at The Ritz and wrote about it on my blog. (My how my writing has improved over time.) With Jen in London for a bit, I thought it would be nice to take her for tea too…little did I know that we’d be upgraded to first class on our flight to Madrid and enjoy high tea somewhere over the Atlantic. So Jen got to have tea twice!

I’ve read about the Pret-a Portea at The Berkeley on a bunch of other London food and restaurant blogs…American-London-Blogger Life in a Nutshell perhaps captures it best because she includes photos of the cakes PLUS photos of the fashion behind the cakes. The idea is that the cakes look like the most recent fashion collections.

The Food: We start with one glass of champagne each. This turns into two. We switch to tea before we can say yes to glass number three. (Wisely so.) There are little sandwiches in quarters with their crusts cut off. Little savory canapes (none of which match what’s listed on the menu, but no bother). And lots of little pastries. Little is the very operative word here. But just like Taco Bell, they offered free refills.

I’m not quite sure how Jen has made it this far in life without having a traditional French macaroon. (As good Catholics, we grew up on the Jewish kind.) So right before heading to The Berkley, I took her to Harrods where we bought a six-pack at Laduree.

So it was nice that soon afterwords, we were treated to another macaroon, a little one…

The Verdict: I thought tea at The Berkeley was well-presented. I wasn’t so keen on the room though. We had tea in the bar, more or less. The guys next to us were having hamburgers. At The Ritz, everyone around us was having tea, which made things a bit more convivial.