Belgravia, Afternoon Tea Restaurant Guide

Very often recommended as an “expensive but reliable” venue for a “perfect business lunch”, this “decorous”, family-run hotel near Buck House (where the Middletons stayed before Kate & Will’s big day) has won renown as a “very classy”, traditionally British affair, where “everything is done perfectly”. Post-Covid, however, its dining room’s performance seems to have been on the slide and the downward trend noted last year continued in this year’s poll amidst gripes that it was “not as good as previously”, serving “bland food” and with “too many high expectations dashed”. Top Tip – “a quintessential English afternoon tea” in the lounges here is still a popular event.

2023 Review: “With window views of the back of Buckingham Palace and its comings and goings amidst refills of tea”, this plush lounge can make a good stop-off for an afternoon treat. Feedback is limited, but praises “a lovely stack of sandwiches, pretty cakes and scones with fresh flavours”. More substantial meals are available in the hotel’s very comfortable and traditional dining room (The English Grill), complete with oil paintings and leather banquettes.

Hermès, Loewe and Zimmermann help inspire the Spring/Summer 2023 Prêt-à-Portea collection on the ‘cakewalk’ of this Belgravia chamber, which takes annual inspiration for its wizard patisserie selection from the catwalk of the fashion industry. If you have money to burn, it’s an impressively skillful and witty twist on the afternoon tea experience – tuck into “Hermès’ tasselled bucket bag, crafted out of Victoria sponge sandwiched with apricot jam, wrapped in chocolate and finished with a chocolate feather plume!”