Afternoon Tea at Hotel Du Vin Birmingham - Review

I love afternoon tea. What isn't there to love, an excuse to sit down with my favourite drink in the world and indulge in my favourite pass time .. eating cake and scones. 

Birmingham isn't the first place you think of when you think "afternoon tea" , if you are anything like me afternoon tea strikes up images of The Dorchester, The Savoy and my ultimate "one day" destination Claridges - all in London. When a colleague at work mentioned she had been for afternoon tea at Hotel Du Vin in BIRMINGHAM and that it was lovely I couldn't wait to investigate! In fact with in 24 hours I had booked, eaten and digested! 

Booking was easy through the website  or alternatively you can always take your chances and just turn up. Afternoon tea is served daily from 2pm - 5pm and is taken in the lovely surroundings of the lounge. The atmosphere is incredibly relaxed which I loved, you know you are in a lovely place but it doesn't feel stuffy or intimidating. We were seated around a lovely crisp, white table cloth set with beautiful linen napkins and silver cutlery, the seats themselves are really comfortable - overstuffed lounging chairs and a big soft sofa. The whole place has a real vintage "shabby chic" vibe - right up my street. 

So on to the main event! The waitress came with a menu and there are several choices, the standard afternoon tea for a very reasonable £11.00 (prices correct of May 2013), a traditional cream tea for £7.50 or for a long lazy afternoon with girlfriends the "G'n'T with a gin and tonic served in a teacup for £19.50.  As I don't drink alcohol the choice was easy for me - traditional afternoon tea it was. I went for a loose leaf afternoon tea and my companion went for Earl Grey. The tea arrived quickly in a lovely blue and white porcelain tea pot accompanied by sugar lumps and a jug of milk. My companion likes to drink her Earl Grey with honey and lemon and they could not have been more accommodating finding some out for her.  The teas were delicious, mine in particular was a very fresh, light afternoon tea perfect with a splash of milk. For anybody that is unsure about which tea to choose there is a tea sommelier on hand to help you with your choice. My favourite touch was a large pot of hot water for top ups - as a tea drinker extraordinaire this was certainly needed! 

After another short wait the waiter brought us our food. A lovely touch was going through everything on the platter explaining the contents. There were several traditional tiered afternoon platters piled up with delicate finger sandwiches (salmon on brown bread, cucumber, chicken and egg mayonaise), the sandwiches were lovely on fresh bread and buttered with real butter (this for me is really important!).  After the sandwiches we tucked into light Devon scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam. The scones were good but dare I say mine are better, you needed to knife to cut into them and I always think the sign on an excellent scone is the ability to tear it open with my fingers. The clotted cream was plentiful and delicious, the jam although tasty was definitely not home made and a little too sweet for my tastes. I prefer a tangy jam!

The finale was the top layer of petit fours, macarons, carrot cake, madalines and chocolate brownies. The stand out petit four for me was the madaline, really light and refreshing with just enough lemon to cleanse the pallet, perfect after a rich clotted cream scone. The carrot cake was moist with a nice sharp frosting, the brownie I am afraid I didn't get chance to try as my companions dove in before I had chance to taste (I hear they were delicious)! The only negative for me was the macaron, the texture was right with a crisp outside and a chewy centre but the taste was just non descript, I couldn't describe it as anything other than very, very sweet and they were so blue they stained my teeth - for several hours afterwards. I really don't like anything that contains that much food colouring, and dare I say blue is rarely recreated by nature as a food source so I generally shy away from blue food. I prefer a macaron coloured with natural colours from a raspberry or blackcurrant - with a taste to match. I guess I am just fussy about macarons! 

All in all it was a lovely, delicious experience. Most importantly for me there was a sense of occasion,of doing something that didn't happen every day and for £11.00 per person I think that is a bit of an afternoon tea bargain for such high quality. The service was excellent, efficient but not overbearing and we were made to feel as if we were welcome to sit in those comfy chairs all afternoon if we had the time with unlimited tea top ups, the problem is with tea top ups most people know when to stop .. I do not, I can drink more tea than most people would believe physically possible so it was a good job for Hotel Du Vin I was on a schedule otherwise I would have drank the caddie dry. 

My recommendation is to go and try it, you will enjoy it - but skip the macarons unless you want blue teeth for the rest of the day (not a good look), and boy if you have had teeth whitening or veneers steer WELL clear!  

I still want to go to Claridges for Afternoon Tea but at least now I know there is a high quality local option and I can guarantee I will go again soon! If you know of anywhere else in Brum to indulge in my favourite afternoon pass time please let me know and I will pop along soon.

The full menu can be found here 


*This review contains my own views, I paid full price for the afternoon tea and the hotel are not aware I was planning to write a review for a blog*