W Fashion / Power Afternoon Tea at 'W Hotel' in Leicester Square

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At the weekend, the bloke and I visited 'W Hotel' in Leicester Square in order to enjoy 'W Fashion / Power Tea'. This special afternoon tea was only available for a limited time and celebrates Design Museum's 'Women Fashion Power Show'. The afternoon tea pastries and Hendrick's Gin cocktail (which is an optional extra) celebrate fashion icons. The afternoon tea could have been enjoyed after or before a visit to the fashion exhibition at the Design Museum. This exhibition was a celebration of women in power (politics, business, culture, and fashion) to the modern day.

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W Hotel is located just off of Leicester Square on Wardour Street, one of the busiest and most-crowded areas of west London. The hotel is in a modern building with Chinatown, theatres, cinemas, museums, and nightlife on its doorstep. Outside the hotel's front door is a large blue 'W', representing the namesake of the hotel. The hotel also attracts celebrities and celebrity events.

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Although the hotel is in the middle of the busy area, it is a quiet haven. With large disco-ball-esque light features as you enter the reception and book shelves stacked high with hundreds decorated plates depicting faces, fashion, hair, or torsos, the hotel can best be described as stylish. Unique lighting in the shape of TETRIS-style bricks and globes were other interior pieces, and the book-shelves that hold the plates also contain design/film/music/theatre-inspired books to fit in with its location. 

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The hotel also has a resident DJ, and she was really getting into some of the songs. The music played included anything from 1970s disco to rock to Amy Winehouse to The Feeling to Michael Jackson. The main lounge area (pictured below) is bright and stylish with tables set up for afternoon tea; the DJ is standing at the back and dressed in a pretty sequin and very sparkly dress.

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We were shown our table, but it was not in the main lounge area. It was in a quieter area to the side with all of the ceiling-high shelving (filled with the plates) next to us. The bloke wondered how they cleaned all of the plates. Each of the tables that were set up for afternoon tea contained a tea stand designed as ceramic heels. The ceramic heels were available in different designs. I saw a pair of sparkly silver ones and beige strappy heels in the lounge. The ones at our table were yellow with black polka-dots with a bow on the front.

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We decided to upgrade to the Hendrick's cocktail "Fashion mar-tea-ni", and this came to us in a vintage-style Hendrick's pitcher. In the pitcher were two glasses of cocktail for each of us. The cocktail was sweet and tasted of grapefruit.

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We enjoyed the cocktails so much that we decided to try another one on the cocktail menu. While we were waiting for our sandwiches, we flipped through the cocktail menu. I settled on the 'Cool Britannia', and the bloke had 'Gold Digger'. The 'Cool Britannia' was a refreshing-but-sour cocktail, and I love sour, so this was right up my  street. I did not take a photograph of the menu, but it contained apple liquer and Tanqueray (gin). The bloke's 'Gold Digger' contained whiskey and raspberry. I could have easily had another cocktail, but I wanted to save room for my tea.

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The tea was brought out, and I tried the Organic Breakfast Tea. (I had Earl Grey later.) The bloke decided to try the Jasmine Pearl Dragon tea, which is a variety that I had not heard of. This is actually a green tea, but it's not bitter at all. I love green tea, but I do know that it can be bitter and it puts a lot of people off. This was not bitter at all. It was a fragrant tea and scented. Actually, the fragrance reminded me of of the honeysuckle bushes that grew in the yard of the house I grew up in and in the countryside; in the June evenings as the land cooled, the scent would be carried in the air. Honeysuckle is my favourite fragrance to this day.

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Our sandwiches arrived, and we had the following flavours: salmon with cream cheese, chicken with lemon butter, egg mayonnaise, and cucumber and Greek yoghurt. I despise mayonnaise and yoghurt, so the cucumber and egg came plain. The sandwiches were tasty, and we could have had a couple more. The scones (with strawberry jam and clotted cream) arrived on the same plate. We had one each, and they were fruit scones. These tasted delicious. The scones served were one of the better ones that I've had in my London afternoon tea experiences.

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After we'd finished sandwiches and scones, the plate of pastries was presented to us along with the description of each. First up, we have 'The Lady Gaga'. This is inspired by singer Lady Gaga, who seems to have taken a step back from the spotlight in recent years, but she was wowing us for awhile with her unique and shocking fashion sense and using it as publicity. The marbled red velvet cake is topped with marzipan with a thin layer of strawberry jam, and it tasted like a Victoria Sponge cake. The cake is inspired by the meat dress that Gaga wore to the 2010 MTV awards. Its marbled design looks like meat, and it's been 'stamped' GAGA. 

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Second is 'The Vivienne Westwood'. It includes two pieces of candy floss, which is inspired by the designer's hair and milk chocolate mousse. The mousse was described as being wrapped in Vivienne Westwood-inspired tartan pattern on the chocolate, but it was not. Perhaps there was an issue in using this pattern on the chocolates. Instead of the tartan patterned-chocolate, the mousse was wrapped in a brown dark chocolate shell. Actually, I would not really call this a mousse. I would describe it as layers of mousse with chocolate sponge cake. This was quite rich, and the bloke could not finish his slice. I felt that perhaps the slice was a little too large, and I actually would have preferred four smaller items to three larger ones. 

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Last but not least is 'The Coco Chanel'. This is a chocolate truffle with white chocolate pearls and a small perfume-bottle containing champagne. The champagne can be 'sprayed' onto the truffle like perfume, and the lid can also be unscrewed so that the remainder can be drunk. The pearls on both truffles were white, except two were covered in gold glitter. This was my favourite of the three desserts.  

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I enjoyed the afternoon tea and the cocktails. The only change that I would make would be to make the chocolate sponge dessert a bit smaller in size and to create a fourth item. The Gaga cake and Chanel and candy floss were spot on, but I felt that the chocolate sponge was missing a little 'something' and under-designed. Other than that, this was a great afternoon out.

In case you are thinking about going to W Hotel to try this themed afternoon tea, this weekend was the last weekend to enjoy the W Fashion / Power Tea. However, the hotel do specialise in themed afternoon teas, and they have celebrated with this theme in the past and will probably do so again in the future. It is certainly worth making a reservation to enjoy afternoon tea and cocktails at W Hotel in Leicester Square.

(Note that I reserved the hotel myself and am not being paid to write this review or any of my previous reviews in this blog, though I would not mind being contacted to write a review of any afternoon tea or meal.)

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