Located in Bloomsbury, the Montague on the Gardens Hotel was the venue of choice. This boutique hotel boasts a safari themed afternoon tea, including traditional tea flavours along with upgrading to include a leopard cocktail.
They have quite a selection of Twinings blends to choose from presented in a cute Twinings box for the important sniff tests before decision making. Once teas are selected, the staff bring the teas along with specially coloured sand timers, to watch and wait for the teas to brew, depending on whether you select green, white or black tea. The consensus amongst us was that the timers were too quick, best to leave a little longer to get the flavours.
From a food perspective it has all the traditional (and they do refills of everything!), a variety of sandwiches (chicken, egg and cress, salmon, and cucumber and cheese), plain and fruit scones, and some tasty dessert treats (macaroon with salted caramel, vanilla cheesecake, toasted coconut mousse and banana meringues).
It’s best to confirm beforehand if you have any specific dietary requirements, but they are accommodating with adjusting the sandwich allocations (not sure if they can do anything with the scones and desserts).
Though it is called Safari Afternoon Tea, there are very few elements that would draw your attention to this. If you have the Leopard Cocktail along with the teas and the decorated macaroons on the dessert plate. We were seated in the Leopard bar, which definitely gave us the safari lodge feel (with its leopard print walls and massive ceiling fans).
I can’t remember the exact figures, but the traditional afternoon tea with cocktail and service charges totalled £45 (excluding the cocktail it would definitely be under £40). The food was good (sandwiches and scones the most!) and free food refills are always a winner!
