Toward the end of the summer, I visited The Colonnade hotel for afternoon tea. The Colonnade is based near Little Venice in London, an area of beautiful and expensive large white Georgian-style houses along the canal. The building is actually the birthplace of Alan Turing, founder of computer science and one of those responsible for breaking the codes in World War 2; he was born in 1912. Sigmund Freud also stayed in the building in the 1930s, and it was a hotel at that time.
The streets are lined with Georgian terraces and large trees, and the hotel has a small courtyard where afternoon tea can be enjoyed. As it was a beautiful summery day, having tea outside would have been lovely. However, we did not do this as my guest wanted to sit inside in case others arrived with cigarettes.
We were led into the basement area, which was a little too warm for my liking and had a large skylight to brighten it up. The decor is modern but does look a little tired, in my opinion. We were seated and served our champagne.
The three-tier afternoon tea stand arrived soon afterwards, packed full of sandwiches, pastries and scones.
We had a selection of cucumber, ham and salmon sandwiches, which were all tasty.
The tea was a slight disappointment as it was nothing special. Afternoon tea, in my opinion, should be loose leaf tea. The calibre of afternoon tea provided did not fit the elegance of the hotel and the area, in my opinion. I felt slightly let down.
We received a fruit scone and a plain scone with a fresh strawberry. The scone did taste nice.
We had a small selection of pastries. These included a couple of macaroons, cheesecake, carrot cake, brownie bites, and chocolate eclairs. Overall, these were disappointing. The selection was also not described when they were brought over to us, so we just had to guess the flavour or type of pastry.
On the way out, we noticed the spendor of the hotel and a full suit of armour in the lobby of the hotel.
This afternoon tea was a bit of a disappointment as I felt that the calbire of the afternoon tea did not match the hotel. Have you been to The Colonnade for afternoon tea? What did you think of it? What is your favourite London afternoon tea?
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