It is Queen Victoria’s
lady-in-waiting, Anna Maria Stanhope, or the Duchess of Bedford, who is said to
have started the tradition of afternoon tea in England. She found that a light
lunch wasn’t quite enough to get her through to dinner, and by four in the
afternoon, she was dying of hunger pangs. There she was, in a situation we all
find ourselves in from time to time – ordering her servants to secretly bring
her pots of tea and bread to her bed chamber. But then she had a better idea.
She invited her friends to join her for five o’clock tea in her rooms at Belvoir Castle. As I always say, if everyone
else is doing it, the calories cancel each other out.
Unlike Gwendolen Fairfax, in The Importance of Being Earnest, who complains to Cecily Cardew
that there is sugar in her tea and cake on her plate instead of
bread-and-butter, the Duchess of Bedford went the whole hog. Her menu was made
up of delicate little cakes, a variety of sweets, and bread-and-butter.
Starting from December 2012, Rocco Forte Brown’s Hotel is
celebrating a hundred-and-seventy-five years in business. If you are a tourist
in London, or
if you would just like to get a taste of Victorian England, try The English Tea
Room, at Rocco Forte’s Brown’s Hotel on Albemarle Street. You will be in auspicious
company. Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle
Book at Brown’s, and Agatha Christie based her novel At Bertram’s Hotel on Brown’s. But unlike Bertram’s, Brown’s is not
too good to be true.
Walk into the wood-panelled rooms of the tea room, that looks
like a study on a country estate, with its ceiling relief, decorated
architraves and other period features, and enjoy your afternoon tea to the very
chilled-out jazz rhythms of their resident musician, who plays at the piano
every afternoon and evening. Though the extensive tea menu boasts a de-tox and
a champagne option, I would choose the authentic experience and go for the
traditional afternoon tea.
Start with choosing from the seventeen teas available on the
menu. There is a range of black and green teas, and herbal infusions for the
caffeine-free. The personable servers (who look like they are part of a wedding
party in their tail-coats) will bring out your tea in silver tea-pots, and then
out will come the tiered cake-stand. Now, you might think, how good can
sandwiches get? Try the sandwiches at this tea room. That’s how good sandwiches
can get. They are miniature finger sandwiches, but you can eat as many
platefuls as you like. From chicken, ham, smoked salmon, to avocado, cucumber,
and cheese-and-pickle, there’s a variety to suit even the most exacting
sandwich connoisseurs.
Just as you are thinking this tea cannot get any better, out
will come the freshly-baked scones with a pot-ful of Devonshire
clotted cream and strawberry jam. The scones melt in your mouth, and I would
diet for a few days before going there, to make up for the large amounts of
cream you are inevitably going to consume. If you’re getting full by now, then
I would say leave the miniature cakes, and save room instead for the cake
trolley. At the end of your meal, your server will bring out a cognac-laced
chocolate cake and a Victoria
sponge. Try a little of each if you dare. Phew.
