"Let Them Eat Cake" Afternoon Tea At Pont Street

Call me old fashioned, but I love afternoon tea. You really can’t beat an afternoon of cake, tea, savouries and scones with good company. Here in London, we’re spoilt with an array of themed afternoon teas, but I jumped at the chance to try Pont St Restaurant’s new Marie Antoinette themed tea.

As you might expect, there’s plenty of cake on offer, but we started with Champagne – with a difference!

You’ve heard of bubble tea? How about Bubble Champagne? These little flavoured bubbles are designed to be spooned into Champagne to add an extra element of fun and a bit of flavour. They come in raspberry and rose flavours and they’re lots of fun to play with. I think I still prefer my Champagne au naturel, but I love the extra element of theatre. I always did like playing with my food.

There were, of course, sandwiches. However for the most part they were cruelly ignored as we knew we’d have to leave space for cake. You’ve got to have priorities.

The savouries were excellent. A deliciously light foie gras, a tasty hollandaise quail egg and beautiful salmon on pumpernickel. The cheese ball with quince was a little too cheesy for me, but that’s a minor point.

The scones were some of the best I’ve tasted lately. Perfectly baked, light and incredibly easy to eat with clotted cream and jam. It would have been easy to fill up on these but with the cake coming, we knew we had to leave room.

That brings me to the main event – cake! For me, the highlights were the Chocolate Opera Cake and the Absinthe Choux. The idea of a choux pastry filled with absinthe might not appeal to you, but the filling is really just a subtly flavoured and coloured cream. The macaron was a little firm for my tastes, but I’m not the biggest fan of macarons anyway. Everything else was delicious, elegantly made and most importantly of all, fun!

I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon tea. The restaurant was quiet and relaxing during the early afternoon period we visited, and the staff were wonderful. It’s a great way to spend a relaxing afternoon in the heart of Belgravia.