Afternoon Tea Adventures - Tale As Old As Time Afternoon Tea at the Townhouse Kensington Hotel

Hello there lovely readers!

Grab a cuppa or six my dears as this particular Afternoon Tea review is the big boss one & a long time coming! For my birthday celebrations last year I spent the weekend in London for a few days of fun with some of my favourite humans. As you may know, two of my big joys in life are Disney & Afternoon Tea. Combine those two together & I'm pretty much in HEAVEN!

The Tale As Old As Time Afternoon Tea, as you can probably guess, was a creation by Town House Kensington Hotel in honor of the Beauty & The Beast film that was released last year. Naturally, when I got wind of this I hightailed it before you could say Cogsworth to the website & imagine my utter dismay & devastation (not to be dramatic or anything) upon learning that they were FULLY BOOKED O_O. Cue minor breakdown. After airing & sharing my woes on Twitter, as you do, I was advised by the hotel to subscribe to their email updates which would notify me if any more dates were added, so I did...& not too long after...I got the email! 

I knew this would be a special Afternoon Tea to remember, so instead of finding the next ASAP available date I decided to book it for my birthday weekend, bear in mind I got the email in April...& my birthday is September...yup...but already even then the dates were getting snapped up rapidly! Plus it gave me something to look forward to for sure :) 

Roll around September & my gal pals Saf, Grace (who are also September babies FYI! Virgo's FTW!) & I made our merry way to Town House Kensington for the Afternoon Tea that I had basically been waiting a year to try, so you can imagine anticipation & expectations were high! Upon arriving we were immediately led to our table within the beautifully decorated library style dining room containing various Beauty & The Beast memorabilia so you very much felt captured by the Disney magic straight away! 

Our table had already been set with the prettiest duck egg blue & white crockery as well as an adorable Gingerbread & Marzipan biscuit at each of our seats in the shape of Belle's beautiful ballgown dress from the iconic dance scene. We were also joined at the table by our very own Lumiere & Mrs Potts for company :)

After we received our teas of which there is a lovely selection to choose from, we were first served a starter plate of savouries. These are meat based on the menu but we requested the vegetarian alternatives which included a mini cheese souffle, a mushroom & saffron arancini (rice ball) & a refreshing side salad. Each item was delicious & twas a nice way to get things started!

Of course we were all excited for the three tiered main event itself & it did not disappoint when brought out in all its glory!

Starting at the bottom, in place of scones you are instead served mini brioche baguettes (in a subtle nod to the village Baker) which I thought a really wonderful alternative, as you know by now I'm not actually a huge scone fan! Alongside these you are served chocolate spread & apricot preserve, which were the perfect accompaniments.

Next up were the sandwiches, which again were meat free as we had requested & offerings included egg mayonnaise with cress, cream cheese &cucumber (which are my favourite) & smoked salmon. All were absolutely delicious.

Finally the tier we were all probably most exited about, the topmost tier of sweet delights!

As you can see there is little ol' Chip hidden amongst the confectionery with his cute grin, holding the infamous "Grey Stuff" that, I don't know about you, but always had ME intrigued to know WHAT it tastes like & if it is delicious as is Lumiere's claim.... It is in fact a white chocolate mousse & was incredibly moreish & the perfect wee size as too much would've been sweet overload!

As well as the Grey Stuff there is also a Snowball macaroon, a Cogsworth chocolate clock tart & a Vanilla & Gold clear Jelly which has a rose petal suspended in the centre. So so pretty! This is served with cream which is poured from your Mrs Potts teapot. I'll be perfectly honest...the jelly itself didn't taste all that much of anything really...but it was so darn cute I can forgive it that!

Overall I think its clear what my verdict is of The Tale As Old As Time Afternoon Tea. We all had such a joyful & magical time we did not want it to end! Of course on account of being so popular they do allocate a time frame of a couple of hours, which is still generous! But, if like us, you definitely like to take your time, you can always take your tea into the lounge area after & continue to enjoy your experience :)

The Tale As Old As Time Afternoon Tea is priced £38.50 per person & I believe that this Afternoon Tea was only meant to be a temporary event, however as it was so popular, more dates were added throughout the year. I'm not certain what the plans are for this year, after having a peek at the website it does state that it is fully booked again! However I highly recommend that you sign up to the newsletter for email updates to be notified of new dates being added as I am sure they will do!

Thanks for reading as always. You can check out all of my Afternoon Tea reviews HERE.

Lotsa love to ya!