Afternoon tea review: Betty Blythe

I go for afternoon quite a lot. It’s probably one of my favourite things to do.

I think it’s only fair that when I go for afternoon tea, I review it on my blog.

This will also be an excellent excuse to go and have afternoon tea more often, as obviously I need to review as many places as I can! I know all four of my readers are keen to know where I think the best places for afternoon tea are.

So. My friends and I went for afternoon tea at the Betty Blythe tearoom, 73 Blythe Road in London, which is about a five minute walk from Kensington Olympia.

The tea room itself is very sweet with lots of cakes on the counter upstairs, a couple of smaller tables and an amazing chandelier.

There is one room downstairs which is where our table was. When we booked we got a choice of menus, and we went for the Victorian traditional afternoon tea. Other options are a Gatsby afternoon tea, an ‘After Wonderland’ afternoon tea (which sounds great!) and the Betty Blythe elegant afternoon tea.

So let’s get reviewing. I’ll just let you know that I’m never going to be a food reviewer as I don’t use phrases like ‘interesting textures and forceful flavours’. Or words like ‘gourmet’ or ‘pedigree’.

In fact if you don’t have time to read this blog post I’ll just sum it up for you now – I basically describe everything as ‘nice’.

Tea and drinks

I don’t drink tea so I have to rely on other people to do this bit of the review for me. I’m reliably informed the score was five out of five, as there was a choice between Earl Grey and English Breakfast and it was replaced as soon as we finished it.

I mean I do drink peppermint tea and green tea, but they weren’t an option on this menu. So maybe I should deduct a point for that.

For non tea drinkers there was either water or a very nice elderflower concoction which I liked. It was fizzy.

I think this is where I’m supposed to describe it as ‘sparkling with flavour, a pleasure for your palette’ or something.

Yeah… it was nice.

Score: four out of five

Sandwich selection and other savouries

Next to come down the stairs were the sandwiches. That makes it sound like the sandwiches marched down the stairs by themselves – I mean if that happened this afternoon tea would get an astonishing review.

The sandwich selection was pretty standard for an afternoon tea: cream cheese and cucumber, beef, cream cheese and smoked salmon and, rather excitingly, jam! All sandwiches were available on both white and brown bread.

Then some mini pea and goats cheese tarts arrived which were nice. I didn’t think the cheese flavour was too strong, but one of my friends disagreed. I don’t know what else to say here… how much can you really say about some miniature tarts? I mean they each had a good amount of peas on them, so that’s good.

Score: three out of five

Scones

When the scones arrived I think we were all hoping that there would be another plate arriving soon, but alas it was not to be.

They were a tad dry, there wasn’t an option of having fruit or plain, and they were quite small. But really you can’t complain when you just cover it up with jam and cream anyway, can you?

Score: three out of five

Cake selection

After the scones, our lovely waitress bought down some mini custard and fruit tarts and a Victoria Sponge.

The cake was moist and was everything you’d expect from a Victoria sponge really. I’m not sure I loved the fruit tarts… I mean they were fine but I think I’ve maybe had better elsewhere.

(Oh gosh I feel bad being a bit critical, I don’t think reviewing is for me.)

Score: four out of five

Value for money

We paid £28 each and then a further £14 service charge when we got there. Would I pay it again? Yes, mainly because of the…

Atmosphere/decor/overall fun-ness

This is where it got fun!!

There are baskets of hats, and drawers full of gloves, veils and dressing up jewellery from all sorts of different eras. The best things I tried on were 1920’s styles – I think I’ve found a strong new look to be honest.

But I also tried on a hat that made me look like an air hostess, and some of them were very much in the style of Hyacinth Bucket or maybe something someone once wore to a wedding in 1987.

We had a great time rummaging through the drawers and putting on different accessories – honestly, I laughed so much and we all loved that part.

It was just great fun! We had a really great day, I think the dressing up was the best part.

Score: five out of five

Also I have to say that our waitress was great and constantly came to make sure we had everything we needed, but not to the point it was annoying. Personally I hate when you have a mouthful of food and someone comes over and says “are you enjoying your meal?”, and then you have to do a mumble-head-nod because you’re too polite to say no anyway. But it wasn’t like that, so we’re all good!

Final thoughts 

Food was good, we had a great day. Would I go back? Yes. I’d like to try the wonderland afternoon tea and I very much enjoy wearing hats from the 1920s now and I’m not sure where else I could get away with wearing them.

How many times I used the word ‘nice’ in this review: three. Not bad!