The only simple pleasure left to us
Splash out this Christmas at London’s Oscar Wilde Bar with a special afternoon tea set
In one of the tea-drinking capitals of the world, there is no shortage of afternoon teas, with a variety of prices and heavily-themed sets to choose from. From the fuss-free basics to Instagram-ready creations featuring Disney’s Beauty
And The Beast, London leaves tea aficionados spoilt for choice — and with something of a headache as a result.
If you are pressed for time and can only make it to one place, opt for tea at the Oscar Wilde Bar at Hotel Cafe Royal. It’ll be a visit that is equal parts aromatic thrill, splendid historical destination and fantastic food, all which end with a little “takeaway”.
Until Jan 3, 2018, Oscar Wilde Bar’s staple afternoon tea will get an extra Christmas sparkle, in the form of the Diptyque Festive Afternoon Tea set. As the famed French perfumer started to provide the ambient scents for the hotel earlier this year, they’ve also got hands-on to create something on the edible side, which first launched in September and takes inspiration from the brand’s most popular perfumes and candles.
The original afternoon tea set comes in a colourful array of sweet, pastel hues, but the more Christmas-themed incarnation will feature lots of reds to highlight the holidays. Guests start off with a glass of Laurent-Perrier NV, before an amuse bouche of goat’s cheese and pickled apple muffin. Three tiers of fluffy sandwiches follow and one can expect a taste of English classics: cucumber and rose pepper cream cheese, smoked salmon and dill crème fraîche, Cotswolds chicken and lemon verbena, or eggs and tarragon mayonnaise. The taste of Christmas is also exemplified with the Roast Norfolk Bronze turkey with chestnut stuffing and cranberry sauce.
You can ask for more sandwiches although the first serving is enough to keep you stuffed. Proper afternoon tea service calls for savoury delicacies to be eaten before the real highlight of scones, pastries and cakes arrive. The four different pastries feature ingredients relating to the most iconic Diptyque scents. This includes Oyebo (raspberry and lemon mousse tart), Benjoin (Victoria sponge, vanilla buttercream), Jasmine (pistachio cake and jasmine tea) and Noisetier (hazelnut, caramel chocolate cream).
The thing to love about Diptyque is how one can smell its divine scents from miles away. However, don’t expect an explosion of flowers in your mouth. Food-wise, it doesn’t get to that intense level and this may be a bit of a let-down for fans of the fragrance house. However, on their own, the sweets are delightful and pack many different textures and tastes with each bite — making for a sophisticated treat.
The Oscar Wilde Bar is a stunner to sit in, being gilded with gold and plush red velvet seats that take you to French baroque bliss. This is sure to make one giddy as the extremely varied hotel can transport you to all sorts of places in a matter of seconds: confusingly the lobby and elevator look like a Gatsby movie set, while the impossibly sleek hotel rooms evoke modern Tokyo. The live piano within the bar also follows suit, with the pianist humorously playing a classical symphony in one minute, before changing his tune to the Game
Of Thrones’ theme song in the next moment and Despacito in another.
This glamorously ornate bar is a don’t-miss because it was the very room that Oscar Wilde “saw hundreds of orange tulips” — but it probably wasn’t just tea that the famous author was drinking. You can even ask to sit at the very table he did, or the one next to it, which was Princess Diana’s favourite.
There’s just enough history and celebrity stardust to add some profundity to your visit and if that’s still not enough, take home a beautiful Diptyque gift set at the end of tea service. It’s everyone’s cup of tea with sample-sized perfumes and a 70g Baies candle, which is Diptyque’s most popular scent of Bulgarian roses and blackcurrant leaves.