My friend and I had booked afternoon tea outside f...

My friend and I had booked afternoon tea outside for a belated birthday catch up. It did take a little while to get someone's attention when we first arrived (we did ring ahead to check if we could arrive early for a drink), and we did have to go into the restaurant itself to find a member of staff. Once we were seated though the staff were pleasant and efficient, and they didn't forget us, even though we were the only ones on the terrace.

Tea and coffee were nice and there was lots of food included in the afternoon tea, with a good variety of sweet treats (Victoria sponge, meringue, profiterole, and scones), and the vegetarian sandwiches I had were tasty (can't comment on the meat ones!). One very minor suggestion would be to perhaps include some pats of butter with the scones, but I really wasn't bothered enough to ask for it, and they were fine with just jam and cream.

It was an overcast and rather windy day, but it's obvious that the terrace would be absolutely glorious on a warm sunny day, with gorgeous views, lots of space, plenty of comfortable chairs, and big tables so it was easy for my friend and I to sit at appropriate distance from each other which was reassuring - neither of us has been out at all really since restaurants re-opened.

One thing that could be improved would be to bring out individual jugs of milk with hot drinks, as my friend and I are trying to be cautious as we both have vulnerable family, and she has a small baby, so we ended up using napkins to pass jugs between us. We did have to go inside to pay at the end as the card machine wouldn't have worked where we were, just in case that other customers are trying to stay outdoors like us.

Overall it was a lovely afternoon catching up, and for what we paid (including the government Eat out discount) it was very good value.