The Tea Files - The Conrad — Hello Miss Jordan

Due to my mama and I's frequent visits for afternoon tea, I have decided to make this into its own little segment on the blog, furthermore known as 'The Tea Files'. If you didn't know already, my mama and I visit all around the country trying all of the afternoon teas in order to find the very best. The winner will ultimately be where I have my hen party whenever I get married!

This time, my mama booked us in for Alice in Wonderland Afternoon Tea at The Conrad St. James, which I was extremely excited about considering Alice in Wonderland is one of my all time favourite books.

The day before we were due to head up to London, she received a phone call from the hotel saying that they had ceased with the Alice in Wonderland theme and were now using a 'Glorious Garden' theme. As we had booked knowing it would be Alice in Wonderland, they agreed to present us with it anyway, especially as we had seen it on their website and it looked amazing.

We took a leisurely stroll from Victoria all around London (with a cheeky stop at Oxford Street!) before arriving at St James's Park where I took a few snaps of the beautiful surroundings, but the river did smell the absolute worst. That's the Thames for you!

We were greeted at The Conrad with warm and friendly service, before taking our seats in Emmeline's Lounge; a lovely bright and open room with comfy chairs and low tables.

A glass of champagne each was included (although my mama had mine).

First up were the sandwiches, and a top tier of little appetisers, including pate with a crispy bread and a cheese and bacon slice. The pate was lovely, but the cheese and bacon breads were slightly dry.

The sandwiches included the classics, as well as dinky egg mayo rolls which were delicious. Unfortunately, we were not offered anymore sandwiches once we were finished which was slightly disappointing as we could have done with some more.

Up next were the scones which I cleverly forgot to take a picture of before scoffing the lot (bad blogger!). They were absolutely delicious and contained flecks of strawberry. I only wished that that scones had been bigger because they were amazing. We were also given mini chelsea rolls which weren't very nice so I think offering two scones would have been better.

These were served with gorgeous helpings of clotted cream, jam and lemon curd (my favourite and so nice to see with an afternoon tea!).

Of course I had a hot chocolate to go with my cakes...

The cakes arrived next and unfortunately they were quite a disappointment. On the website the Alice in Wonderland tea was served on a grass board, whereas ours was served up on a silver tray. It felt quite messy and like it had been thrown together at the last minute. We watched as some of the Glorious Garden afternoon teas were brought out to other tables, and these were served on the grass! Although the cakes served on our tray were mostly lovely, the cakes and overall presentation of the Garden tea were far better and it awkwardly looked more like an Alice in Wonderland tea than ours did!

I did love the 'Eat Me' gingerbread biscuit which tasted wonderful and had a lovely crunch to it. I wasn't a huge fan of the Earl Grey mousse underneath, but that's just because I'm not a huge tea fan!

The mini rose cake was also amazing!

As well as the macaron, which I believe was blueberry flavoured.

The chocolate cake was huge and slightly dry, but had a lovely striped white and brown pattern inside.

The service was overall very good but it was a bit of a let down with the cakes and the overall presentation of the tea. We mentioned this to the waiter, who proceeded to apologise, mentioning it was because of the theme change, which is fine but I wish that The Conrad had let my mama know that it wouldn't be as good as the new theme, rather than making half the effort with the Alice theme. The waiter did offer to bring us out the Garden cakes, but as we had eaten ours we couldn't fit them in! Unfortunately, no discount was applied to the bill and no manager was called. I really hate being negative here, but I have to be 100% honest. It was a real shame because their current afternoon tea really did look fantastic!

Tea Files Rating: 5/10

UPDATE 5/06/15: Since posting, the manager of The Conrad has been in touch and offered to give us a complimentary afternoon tea for two next Tuesday which I really appreciate! I will be updating this post afterwards to give my verdict on our second visit.

After tea, we took a stroll around the area so I could take a couple of outfit snaps. I saw this skirt over on The Londoner's blog and immediately fell in love with it! It's from a website called ChicWish that do some absolutely stunning clothes, all for amazing prices. They ship from America but pay for all your customs charges as well, which is pretty amazing! I thought this outfit would be perfect for afternoon tea.