Recently we had afternoon tea, my all time favourite kind of meal. We visited The Tea Terrace, which turned out to be a chain. We had walked past it before but this was the first time going in.

Atmosphere

Everything was pink – pink chairs and pink decor everywhere. They chose a theme and really went with it!

Near the entrance was a cute carriage you can sit in and dine, for an extra price, I presume. It was a cute and relaxed atmosphere.

I imagine it would be a nice place to hold a baby shower or have tea with kids – that kind of cute-sy feel. You don’t need to get dressed up to enter either, which the hubby really liked.

I really appreciated the placemats with quotes about tea and there were colourful and dainty tea sets too.

Savoury

Now onto the food. What I found refreshing at The Tea Terrace was that you can select your own fillings and your own bread.

If you’re having traditional afternoon tea for one, you can select two fillings out of an available seven.

As we had the traditional afternoon tea for two that meant we could select four fillings. We selected:

• cucumber and cream cheese;
• Scottish smoked salmon and cream cheese;
• chicken mayonnaise and lettuce; and
• cheddar cheese and chutney.

We asked for artisan bread, but it appeared too popular, so we ended up with really fresh brown bread instead.

The fillings were really tasty and not too overpowering, sometimes I find the chutney can be a bit too much for me. The sandwiches didn’t seem fluffed with sauce and there was a good amount of filling.

Probably some of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a while. I didn’t even notice at the time that the sandwiches weren’t finger-shaped like in most afternoon tea places.

Sweet

We’ve learnt now to move onto the sweet plate straight after the savoury and before the scones. This allows stomach space for my favourite tier.

No selection for the sweets here, which is pretty standard for most afternoon teas. There were five mini desserts with some strawberries thrown in too.

First up was the mini coffee eclair – this was very light and delicate. The hubby felt this was his least favourite because of the coffee, but I actually couldn’t really taste the coffee, and I don’t like drinking coffee.

Next up was a mini lemon tart with meringue topping – probably the smallest tart I’ve ever eaten. It was light and didn’t have a strong lemon flavour. Adorably cute and would happily have plenty more if the lemon flavour was a little stronger – I do love lemon tarts.

Then it was a chocolate truffle and salted caramel pyramid. The chocolate truffle must have been the chocolate base and the salted caramel pyramid was more of a mousse.

It looked like it was going to be sickly and milky and I was anticipating not being able to finish this one, but it turned out to be one of the loveliest mousses I’ve ever had. It was so light and moreish, and it was our favourite of all the desserts.

Then it was a mini vanilla panna cotta on a sable biscuit. Don’t think I’ve had sable biscuits before, but apparently they’re similar to shortbread, which I have had plenty of times.

The sable biscuit was soft instead of hard and crumbly, probably better for my teeth, but not the texture I was expecting. When eating this I had no idea what was on top of the biscuit, it just felt gelatinous.

I wasn’t fond of the texture and that’s probably why I don’t usually opt for panna cotta. This was my least favourite dessert from this tier.

Last of the desserts was the mini rich chocolate brownie, which I had with the decorative strawberries. When the plates arrived I couldn’t actually see the brownie; I only saw the rose-shaped chocolate frosting peeping behind the other desserts so was pleasantly surprised to discover a brownie underneath it.

The brownie was fudgey and got a little stuck in the teeth, but it was tasty. There was a lot of chocolate frosting and I feel I would have preferred more brownie than frosting, but it was a good combination.

And the last tier was the scones. There’s a selection of six different flavours of scones, which is the most I’ve ever seen for afternoon tea.

We opted for all traditional fruit scones, which came with clotted cream, jars of strawberry jam, and icing on top.

I found the scones quite crumbly, but still enjoyable. I quite liked the icing sugar on top too.

Verdict

Decent tea selection, not the vastest quantity, but better than most others I’ve been to, especially as there was no supplemental charge for particular teas. Some of the flavourings were quite interesting too.

Would definitely go back, if anything to try the sandwiches with artisan bread, and have the salted caramel pyramid again – that was divine.

The Tea Terrace serves breakfast and lunch too, so I’m keen to go back for lunch. It’s not often that places that serve afternoon tea as well as normal cooked food and cakes do well; this is part restaurant, part café.

The last place I could think of that operated like this that I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon tea at was Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa, which has since shut down unfortunately.