Price: 4/5
Service: 3/5
Surroundings: 4.5/5
Food: 4/5
The cream tea at the Delaunay Counter is a maze of difficult pronunciations that one must navigate in order not to appear socially awkward. How do you pronounce scones? If you thought that was easy, try gugelhupf! Although the bakes may be hard to order, that doesn’t make them any less delicious when they arrive.
For a fairly reasonable £9.50 you get a pot of tea that the lovely staff will refill, two scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, then whipped cream and apricot jam to go with a poppyseed gugelhupf (which we’ve since learnt is a yeast based cake baked in a distinctive circular Bundt mold, originally from Central Europe). Be warned, this is one of the cheaper menu options and there is also a service charge, the restaurant is in fact fairly pricey. The warm scones were fluffy on the inside with juicy raisins, but on the outside there was a firmer, almost crust-like layer of golden dough that made for a lovely and satisfying texture. The gugelhupf was even softer, perhaps too soft - it was very difficult to eat because it would break before ever reaching your mouth. It’s not a problem if your a believer in “you have to break it to eat it”, but it does make the overall experience ever so slightly less pleasing, if we are being incredibly scrupulous (good word!). The sweetness of the jams perfectly complemented the coolness of the creams and as for the tea...well, it was tea. We like the fact it was made with actual tea leaves but pouring it with the intricate and unnecessarily complicated strainer (are you sensing a theme?) was… hmm… messy.
As for the overall atmosphere is made by the beautiful interior design - you are surrounded by green-black marble and clean white tiles that are only made more stately by the brass light fixtures. It was posher than we expected so we felt a little out of place but no one seemed very bothered, so we would categorise it as formal but friendly.
We would recommend this restaurant as a perfect alternative to high tea, so go, give it a try and feel free to tell us all about your own experience.
Roo x
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