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The best London hotels for afternoon tea: Where to visit for city views, tradition and sweet treats
Pinkies up for some of the finest finger food in the capital
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The afternoon tea is a sophisticated staple at most of the major players on London’s hotel scene, but where some shine with scones, others fall as flat as a limp cucumber sandwich.
Planning a visit to England’s capital? Don your glad rags for a taste of tradition with tiers of finger sandwiches, pastries and brilliant brews.
Gone are the days when afternoon tea constituted a “light meal”, nowadays the ritual can be as experimental in cuisine as it can with theme, with everything from Asian-fusion feasts to sci-fi confectionery on the menu.
From high tea heavyweight The Ritz to The Shard’s city panoramas and the Cornish classics of Park Lane, there’s something for everyone to relish in style.
Here are the best London drawing rooms to indulge in stacks of sweet and savoury treats with trusty teapots or flutes of champagne to sip on the side – it’s always five o’clock somewhere after all.
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Afternoon tea at Hotel Café Royal
Neighbourhood: Soho
Best for: Elegance
For a timeless afternoon tea in Oscar Wilde style, pastry chef Loic Carbonnet puts on a decadent display of sandwiches, scones and desserts in the Hotel Café Royal’s grade II-listed Grill Room. Over 20 blends of white, green, black, tisane and oolong tea flow into fine china as egg and truffle, roast beef and curried chicken savouries are brought out for sampling. Delicate sweet treats are what Carbonnet does best, with apple tartlets, coconut éclair’s and a citrus cheesecake rivalling in elegance even the gold leaf details and intricate ceilings of the surrounding room.
Traditional afternoon tea at Hotel Café Royal costs £75pp.
The Drawing Room at Brown’s Hotel
Neighbourhood: Mayfair
Best for: Plant-based
It may be London’s oldest hotel, but if you’re looking for vegan treats at tea time then Brown’s has caught up with the times. Aside from traditional flavours such as smoked salmon and horseradish on a malted loaf, and cucumber and goat cheese on white bread, Queen Victoria’s favourite haunt also offers a plant-based menu with coronation vegetables, pumpkin seed pesto, and chocolate and clementine cake stacked onto the tiers. This is the quintessential English experience with original wood panelling, Jacobean ceilings and roaring fires warming the cockles as you sip your brew.
Plant-based afternoon tea at Brown’s Hotel costs £75pp.
Science afternoon tea at The Ampersand
Neighbourhood: South Kensington
Best for: Families
The Ampersand has shaken things up with a children's science afternoon tea that blasts off on a red rocket stand – mini hot dogs, dinosaur jam sandwiches, blackcurrant planets and chocolate lollipops in tow. You can forget boring cups of tea, it’s “spaceman” hot chocolate with all the trimmings on this quirky outing. Inspired by the nearby Science Museum, the tea comes complete with test tube toppings and a milk chocolate fossil hidden within chocolate “soil” in an impressive cloud of dry ice. Don’t worry, the adults aren’t excluded from this imaginative affair, with classic smoked salmon blinis, tempting white chocolate cranberry scones and fruity macarons to satisfy the whole family.
The kids’ sci-fi afternoon tea at The Ampersand costs £35 per child; adults’ menu £49.50pp.
Afternoon tea at Rosewood London
Neighbourhood: High Holborn
Best for: Art enthusiasts
If you like to take your afternoon tea with a side of art, pastry chef Mark Perkins has recreated the work of internationally renowned artists and their London exhibitions on the Rosewood’s plates. Carefully curated pastries – mini replicas of artworks from Yayoi Kusama, Vincent van Gogh, Andy Warhol and David Hockney – stun in design, colour and taste as part of the Mirror Room’s “art afternoon tea” series. This Mother’s Day the art-inspired pastries complement a lineup of beef sirloin sandwiches and raisin scones with optional tea pairings for each course.
Mother’s Day art afternoon tea at Rosewood from £75pp.
Afternoon tea at The Ritz
Neighbourhood: St James’s
Best for: Tradition
The crème de la crème of London’s cream teas, The Ritz really know how to put on a showstopping serving of sandwiches. It’s fancy, it’s formal, it’s fresh and there are plenty of traditional treats to go around during the five daily 90-minute sittings. Scottish smoked salmon balances with lemon butter on sourdough bread, while brioche rolls of egg mayonnaise and watercress wet the palette before the main event – tiers of warm raisin and plain scones ready for spreading with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry preserve. With 20 different types of loose-leaf tea to choose from, an afternoon spent in this old world opulence is a dream for special occasions.
Prices for afternoon tea at The Ritz start from £75pp.
Oblix East at The Shard
Neighbourhood: London Bridge
Best for: Views of London
Located on the 32nd of The Shard, Oblix East offers panoramic views of London’s spectacular skyline, and roomy armchairs to take it all in. The new menu is reasonably priced compared to some of the city’s hotel heavyweights, with a modern twist bringing new flavours to timeless classics. Sandwiches include smoked salmon and seaweed with cucumber, coronation chicken, mango chutney and coriander, and a prawn and lobster roll, while cranberry scones come with lashings of fresh honeycomb, whipped clotted cream and raspberry preserve. For those more boozily inclined, for an additional £36 per person, a bottomless selection of cocktails will accompany your pastry platter.
Oblix at The Shard classic afternoon tea from £58pp.
Afternoon tea at The Prince Akatoki
Neighbourhood: Marble Arch
Best for: Asian-fusion
Steering clear of tradition, afternoon tea meets sumptuous sushi platters in a Japanese-inspired offering this Mother’s Day at the Prince Akatoki. Sips of sparkling sake and classic sashimi kickstart the flavourful experience followed by the hotel’s standard afternoon tea stack. Brioche buns burst with seared tuna and avocado, a quail’s Scotch egg is topped with Japanese mustard mayo, and there’s a chicken katsu sando on the savoury scene. On the sweet side, tantalising tastes of Japanese matcha, miso and yuzu punctuate Swiss rolls, scones and a butterscotch tart.
Mother’s Day afternoon tea at The Price Akatoki costs £85pp.
Afternoon tea at Dean Street Townhouse
Neighbourhood: Soho
Best for: Value
Dean Street Townhouse ticks all the boxes for a traditional English afternoon tea experience without the steep price tag. This affordable afternoon tea features generous servings of egg mayo, smoked salmon and gin-and-tonic cucumber sandwiches, warm scones with homemade jams, and several blends of loose-leaf tea in blue and white china teapots. Better still, it’ll set you back less than £30, making this cosy setting of velvet chairs and mahogany panelling ideal for an affordable Mother’s Day treat. If you feel like splashing a bit more cash the afternoon tea with a flute of thienot champagne will set you back £40.
Afternoon tea at Dean Street Townhouse costs £28pp, or £40pp with a glass of Thienot Champagne.
‘An Ode to Cornwall’ at InterContinental Park Lane
Neighbourhood: Knightsbridge
Best for: Cornish classics
In the Wellington Lounge at the InterContinental Park Lane, you’ll find stacks of crockery striped in white and blue promising to take customers on a cultural culinary journey into the heritage of Cornwall. The “Ode to Cornwall” afternoon tea – in partnership with acclaimed pastry chef Martin Chiffers – uses local produce including Newlyn crab, St Ewe eggs and Cornish game hen. There’s even Cornish honey cake and rum baba barrel, both of which will transport you out west as you debate the correct order of cream and jam.
‘An Ode to Cornwall’ at InterContinental Park Lane costs £69pp.
Afternoon tea at The Stafford
Neighbourhood: St James’s
Best for: Decadent desserts
The Stafford’s afternoon tea offers five-star service as it serves up irresistible sweets from a table-side trolley service, plus raisin and cheddar scones, and classic sandwich combinations from cheese and onion to ham and mustard. The vanilla and raspberry white mouse, and pistachio, dark chocolate and passion fruit tart look almost too good to eat. This Easter, there’s even a seasonal hot cross bun twist to go with the selection of artisan teas by Camellia’s Tea House – there are four bespoke signature blends including a smokey black and citrus tea.
Afternoon tea at the Stafford costs £70pp.
Fancing hunkering down post finger sandwich? Read more on the best boutique hotels in London
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