Afternoon Tea at Les Deux Salons

I decided to try the Afternoon Tea at Les Deux Salons because it is one of my favourite restaurants, and because they give afternoon tea a fair amount of prominence on their website and outside the restaurant.

The ambience at LDS is wonderful – they really make the most of the building and it is always a delight to be there. The welcome is always friendly – it’s just a very nice place to be.

Afternoon Tea, however, is a mixed bag. I’ll start with the good points:

The sandwiches: these were fresh and delicious, and although they mostly stuck to the classic fillings, my friend was pleasantly surprised to find mustard mayo on the salmon one, which we both thought was a great innovation.

The pastries: LDS is, of course, a French restaurant, so the pastries and tarts were absolutely spot-on. We were served delicate hazelnut and lemon meringue tarts and an apple pastry all of which were light, the right side of sweet and gorgeous to look at.

The mousses: pistachio mousse layered on a dark chocolate ganache was a dream, as was the light trifle: jellied fruits topped with sherry cream. Wonderful!

Now, I’m afraid, we must address the bad:

The tea: The quality of the tea was good, however, it was poorly served. Our tea was poured for us as soon as it reached the table – and of course it was very weak and unpalatable. Clearly they haven’t trained their staff to know that tea needs to steep.

The scones: We were very excited about the scones because they LOOKED perfect. Large, craggy and dusted with icing sugar. However, they were STALE. They crumbled under the knife, and even washed down with tea we didn’t feel like finishing them.

The cakes: I suspect that LDS just doesn’t have kitchen staff that are comfortable with cake. Like the scones, the two cakes we were served were stale, hard and unpleasant – most likely due to overbaking by cooks more used to pastry.

All in all, I would give LDS a 2.5/5 for its afternoon tea. However, I must state that this is an excellent restaurant – go there for lunch or dinner, but skip the dessert.