Beauty and the Beast – tale as old as time afternoon tea

There are some moments, events and times which take you back to being a child. They let you re-live cherished moments, so when I was able to book the Tale as Old as Time – Beauty and The Beast afternoon tea at Town House Kensington for my goddaughters 7^th birthday treat. I knew we were all secretly in for a trip down memory lane and a whole host of delightful and delicious offerings to sample.

Each slot is reserved for approx. 2 hours per party and both adults and children pay the same price and have the same menu which was £35 or £45 if adults would like it with a glass of champagne. They have now put the prices up slightly due to the high demand but not by much, all still very worth it! They were very accommodating and removed all salmon from the options for us and brought out Rowen her own afternoon tea with ‘Happy Birthday’ on it to make her feel extra special.

We all opted for the standard English breakfast tea but they have ample to choose from, including herbal and also coffee. To begin you are served a trio of mini starters, being a bite size venison pie, beef ragu and saffron arancini with lemon crème fraiche and a cheese soufflé with to describe it best an onion marmalade base. They were utterly delicious and I could have had plate after plate of these, and for someone of Rowen’s age she was more than happy to try them all and loved the mini venison pie.

They then proceeded to bring out the afternoon tea which consisted of three tiers. On the bottom was sweet brioche rolls with an apricot preserve and chocolate pot, personally the chocolate was too bitter for all of us, though it was milk chocolate it was far too rich. The preserve however was gorgeous and was a winner all round. The middle tier was finger sandwiches, with the cuts crust another throw back to being a child you have salmon on the menu but we changed these all to extra egg and cress, the others were roast chicken and cranberry on brown and cucumber and cream cheese on white the same as the egg and cress. Again I could have devoured more of these as I do find myself always swaying to the savoury options more on afternoon tea.

The main event was the sweet, Cogsworth and Lumiere were decorative and placed on the table, I must have taken around 50 photos of Rowen holding them as she loved them. Mrs Potts and Chip were part of the tea though Chip was filled with ‘The Grey Stuff’ a white chocolate mousse with grey cream to top. Mrs Potts was filled with cream to top off the vanilla and gold jelly such a beautiful dessert where small rose petals were encased to really capture a big part of the film in such a stylish way. There was a mini Cogsworth clock tart also filled with chocolate ganache, it was however the same as in the chocolate pot so this was not my favourite but it will be for some. There was a delightful chocolate snowball and as a little extra touch Belles beautiful yellow gold Speculoos gown was presented as a marzipan biscuit, wrapped to take home as a little piece of magic to take home and enjoy later.

Overall I think for both children and adults alike it is a little slice of memory magic and if you can get booked in do. It has been so popular and I know most have struggled to get a table but I urge you to keep trying to get yourself booked in. Keep checking back as they have been releasing more dates however I know they are booked until July 2018 at the moment! Next up is Aladin afternoon tea in the Genie’s Cave at Cutter & Squidge so keep an eye out for that.

Have any of you managed to book into the afternoon tea?