marble_girl's Qype reviews
-
86-90 Park Lane, Mayfair, London W1K 7TL
My sister and I went here for afternoon tea. I absolutely love afternoon tea. I wouldnt say I'm an afternoon tea connoisseur, but I have visited various establishments and the Grosvenor House Marriott is hands down first class.
marble_girl
wrote on 5 June 2012
The tea room is large, light and airy. The pianist set the relaxed tone as we were served freshly made finger sandwiches with a range of fillings including chicken and oak smoked salmon from Anna's afternoon tea menu. The sandwiches were all freshly made and we were offered a refill.
The buttery plain and raisin scones were still warm tucked under the cloth napkin. As my knife split the first of the scones in two, it opened up to reveal a fluffy and slightly crumbly texture on the inside. Perfect. I swept it generously with the organic clotted cream and the strawberry jam and went in for my first bite. Crumbly. Warm. Sweet and creamy. My eyes lit up with pleasure at the loveliness of it all and purposely slowed myself down to savour every last crumb...
..that was probably a bad mistake as there were some incredibly lovely mini French pastries which we struggled to finish, but with some more hot tea to accompany our treats, finish we did albeit inches from falling into a sugar coma.
Vowing never to stuff ourselves full of that much cake again - well we failed obviously - this place has really set the bar in terms of fine afternoon teas.
-
53 Park Lane, London W1K 1QA
Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester
marble_girl
wrote on 3 December 2011
I wasn’t expecting too much aftter reading the various mixed reviews about this place. I came with an open mind in any case and wish I could’ve rated it higher, but in all honesty the food although very good quality was, well, a bit boring particularly given the apparent status of the restaurant.
The miniature cheese choux pastries were very nice, but the starters were not tantalisingly explosive in any way, a bt of a dud if I’m completely honest and then the mains were quite underwhelming. I had a white fish dish and although a broad range of flavours and textures showed off the talents of the chef, it didn’t demonstrate a level of inventiveness or special quality in making that dish anything other than just adequate.
I was particularly looking forward to the dessert course but again it undelivered. In terms of food, perhaps the only savng grace was the extensive array of petit fours that accompanied our coffees. A nice selection of macarons, chocolates and toffee, and because we couldn’t eat them all, they doggy bagged it up for us to take home.
Lovely friendly staff however, but I can honestly say I won’t be back.