Afternoon Tea with Team Cigary | The Mandeville Hotel

I have been dying to go to afternoon tea since I arrived in London back in late September. It's so quintessentially British, how could I not want to partake in the fun! When my friend Kristen gushed about the afternoon tea at The Mandeville Hotel, I knew it was something that Team Cigary and Team Starnes needed to experience together.

Sunday morning, we all got up, showered, got dressed and headed over to West London to explore Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus. James and I did a bit of shopping and Erika and Jesse experienced the circus that issss Piccadilly Circus on a weekend, and then we headed over to Mayfair for our 4:00 reservation.

When we arrived, we were greeted immediately and led to our table, which was set and ready for us in a cozy corner of the restaurant. We decided on our tea selections over a complimentary bellini and then we weighed our options between the Vintage Afternoon Tea menu and the Gentleman's Afternoon Tea menu.

The option of the Gentleman's Tea sold me on this particular restaurant and is why I ultimately booked the reservation. At the same price as a traditional tea menu, you get the same sweets, cakes and scones but heavier and more savory finger foods options like sausage rolls, fish and chips and steak sliders. Done, and done!

You order per person, so we decided to go with two Vintage Afternoon Teas and two Gentleman's Teas, which ended up being plenty of food for the four of us! Most of the time, you hear about people leaving hungry or unsatisfied, but that was not the case for us.

The food came out on an expertly tailored three-tiered stand where someone had obviously taken the time to pay attention to detail. The presentation was excellent; everything was fresh and beautifully decorated and displayed, it was impossible to NOT get carried away with the photographs.

The food was just as delicious as it was appealing to the eye. No one commented on dry scones, or stale bread; we all appreciated the quality of the food.

I loved all the vintage details of the tea cups and flatware. Everything was eclectic and mismatched perfectly.

And the boys were great sports too! They could have fought us on this, but they didn't.` They dressed up without complaining and they tolerated the endless picture taking and posing. It was all in good fun and we all had a good time being "posh."

Afternoon tea is not the cheapest pass time you can do in London, in fact, at certain hotels, you can run a bill of 50+ per person. It was important for me to be reasonable so I can not tell you how excited I was to find a quality afternoon tea for under £30 per person. 

ANDDDDD, I haven't even gotten to the best part yet...

For an extra £2 each person, you can add free flowing prosecco to your tea, which of course, we did! The waiter continuously popped bottle after bottle for us as we caught up, goofed off and enjoyed our afternoon in style!

We had an amazing time! It was definitely one for the books! If you are looking for a more budget-friendly afternoon tea without sacrificing atmosphere, I would definitely recommend checking out the Reform Social and Grill at the Mandeville Hotel!