A Festive Afternoon

The countdown to Christmas is officially on with only ten days left to go, so yesterday to put ourselves in even more of a festive mood, Danny and I went to the Corinthia Hotel for a very festive afternoon tea. The moment you walk in the Corinthia it is like walking into a fairy tale, the beautiful Christmas trees are so amazingly decorated they really do make you gasp and the decorations on the table have a magical Christmas feel as they are covered in winter candles, snow-covered butterflies, cones and fruit. The whole of the Corinthia has been touched by the Christmas fairy, turning into the Harrods shop – yes inside the hotel, is the most stunning flower arrangements and a ten foot edible Christmas tree made from Gingerbread, wow!

What I’m Wearing

Yumi Star Dress | F&F Patent Boots

We headed into the Lobby Lounge which if you look up hosts the most wonderful Baccarat chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Again a perfect setting with more Christmas trees, table settings and lovely butterfly designs on the wall. We took our table and had a look at the menu. All the cakes for the afternoon tea each had a Christmas inspired name and sounded delicious I couldn’t wait!

We started off with a glass of Laurent-Perrier Rose, I think Laurent Perrier is becoming my favourite champagne after having it at a few afternoon teas lately. We also chose our teas to have with tea, I opted for the flavoured rose pouchong tea, infused with rose and rose petals and Danny decided on the Prince Alexander Blend which was a China black tea infused with chocolate and caramel and I can confirm it was delicious. The teas are specially selected blends from Harney & Sons and the Corinthia, I found it such a good selection and each one we had was full of flavour.

Before cakes, you are brought out a selection of seasonal sandwiches including roast turkey and stuffing with fresh cranberry and roast sirloin of beef with wholegrain ale mustard. When we had finished these off we were asked if we wanted anymore, but I was eager to move onto the cakes as always. Now as I mentioned each cake had a festive name and when they arrived, they looked it too! The first one that caught my eyes was the Avalanche, which looked like a pair of skis and snow. This was dark chocolate shortbread, salted caramel ganache and vanilla frosting and they tasted as good as they looked. A few of my other favourites were the Stocking Stuffer, a yuzu and clementine mousse with orange and chocolate sable, so tangy and just melt in your mouth chocolate and the Rudolph, a crispy topped choux with malted milk chocolate and banana cremeux which of course was red on the outside just like Rudolph!

Joining us on our festive afternoon tea were four carol singers, who filled the room with festive cheer with their amazing voices and carols. The carol singers will be singing for one more Saturday and Sunday this weekend (20th-21st) from 3pm, so don’t miss them.

I loved all the small details of this festive afternoon tea such as the design of holly on the Sugar Plum Fairy tartlet and the snowflake on Santa’s Little Helper macaroon. Not forgetting the scones of course, fruit and plain with strawberry and raspberry jam and clotted cream. We were asked if we would like any more cakes in particular, scones or tea. I blurted out more scones and we enjoyed these over more tea. Although as always my eyes were bigger than my belly and so we were able to take a small selection home with us too.

We both had such a relaxing afternoon and the food was delicious, it was great to break away from the sometimes stresses of Christmas. I just wished I was staying the night in the hotel as I didn’t want to leave!

The Corinthia Festive Afternoon Tea with carol singing is priced at £60, for more info and to book visit Corinthia London.