William Bartram

Review of The Ampersand Hotel

We went as a group of six to an Ampersand Hotel Sc...

We went as a group of six to an Ampersand Hotel Science Afternoon Tea during the week in January 2018. This would be my first afternoon tea experience. The drawing room was pleasantly decorated and comfortable with enough space between the tables so as to not be crowded.

Once we were settled and had ordered our teas we had an experiment to conduct! Components to make lemonade were brought to us in a metal kidney dish. A small bottle of water, a test tube of lemon juice, a syringe of glucose, a pipette of raspberry, a pipette of passion fruit and a sachet of powder to make it fizz.

Various attempts at lemonade were made. It was more on the traditional lemonade side so quite bitter, but that was fine for my palate. I know service is an important aspect of a five start hotel but a little warning that the sachet was already cut open would have been helpful as a couple of them ended up emptied over the table! They were replaced, of course, but I think we were all young and fit enough to have been able to open our own sachets in the first place. Nevertheless, a very playful way to start the science tea!

Along came the sandwiches, scones and cakes. Two sets came out first, followed shortly afterwards by the third set and a party trick to go along with it. The top tier plate with the cakes had a small dish of dry ice in it, which the waiter poured some water into to bring smoke cascading down the three tiers. It was a very good effect and continued the science theme. The timing could have been a little better. It would have been nice to have all three sets out at once and then immediately water poured over the dry ice. That would have been far more dramatic.

Tea arrived with or shortly after the food had arrived. The first round was mostly split between their breakfast blend and darjeeling. I was one of the ones having darjeeling and it was light, floral and refreshing, as you would expect.

The savoury tier consisted of smoked salmon blinis, roast beef and horse radish in a brioche bun, coronation chicken in a bun and a goats cheese and cranberry quiche. All were very tasty although the goats cheese was not to my taste. We had to have a second round, of course! Although we could have chosen which ones to have, we kept it simple and swapped amongst ourselves as our preferences dictated.

Plain and white chocolate scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam was the next tier. They were also good, if a little crumbly here and there. We missed a trick with the scones, however. There were test tubes of freeze dried raspberry, pineapple and caramel chunks on the table which could have been used to augment the scone toppings but they were never explained to us in time before we were onto the sweet course. I would have been good for a waiter to have explained those tubes either right at the start or when they noticed us start on the scones. A missed opportunity.

Around this point we had another round of tea. I chose jasmine this time which was, again, faultless and flowery.

Finally, the sweet tier. This consisted of a petri dish of processco and kiwi jelly, passion fruit planet mousse with white chocolate ring, orange and lemon half moon cake and a coconut macaroon with a pipette of blueberry jam. This tier, in the looks department, really made it a "science" tea. Especially the planet mousse. We felt the best was the passion fruit planet mousse and least was the macaroon.

Whilst starting to eat the petri dish a passing waiter exclaimed along the lines of "Urgh, you're not going to eat that, are you?!" we laughed along with him. It's good to see the staff having a sense of humour, it definitely adds to the experience.

We were all pretty much done by this point, all very much satisfied. Afternoon tea is more than just tea and cakes, it's a whole lunch and with a theme like the Ampersand has done it ends up an experience too! With my first afternoon tea under my belt I'm eager to check out more now.

Overall, very good afternoon tea although the service could have been a little better in places.