Penny Blood's Black Book - My Independent Guide to London » Afternoon Tea

Violet

Penny Blood — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:12:26 +0000

My absolute favourite places are the ones that pop up in the middle of nowhere, little places dreamed up by people who have for years fantasised about owning a café and then manage to far outshine the bigger budget more centrally located ones. Violet is one of these places, a simple little cafe with a lot of character. It’s part of random little stretch of really great cafes and shops in a nice residential area near Hackney Central Station which includes another of my favourites Wilton Way Cafe. Although not overflowing with space there is ample seating and the people who work here are really friendly. To one side there’s the kitchen with girls baking cakes and to the other, an old-fashioned cakes cabinet with a selection of delicious varieties including ginger and molasses cake and almond and polenta cake with cream cheese icing. They do my favourite kind of breakfast, granola with yogurt and honey and toast and jam, plain and simple. Lunch varies from soup to quiche and salad, there isn’t a huge range but in these times of mass choice of mediocrity I’d rather quality over quantity any day.

www.violetcakes.com

Violet, 47 Wilton Way, London, E8 3ED
020 7275 8360
Tuesday to Friday 7:30–6:00 Saturdays 9:30-6:00 Sundays 9:30-5:00

Petersham Nurseries

Penny Blood — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:33:19 +0000

Until I discovered Petersham Nurseries “Let’s go to Kew Gardens” were 5 words I wasn’t keen on hearing. Kew Gardens is hugely over-rated and expensive. If you’re looking for a nice day out in the park then Richmond Park is a better idea the best part being afternoon tea or lunch at nearby Petersham Nurseries. Being an actual nursery it’s an idyllic setting with potted trees, flowers and stone statues everywhere. Part of it is a fairly expensive restaurant designed to feel like you are outdoors…. Indoors, with a canopy like roof and vines growing up pillars, all the while decorated with antique furniture and old paintings. It’s gorgeous. The café is equally lovely yet more relaxed serving all kinds of cakes, soup, quiche, that kind of thing. It’s a perfect place to make a trip on a sunny day for a cup of tea and a piece of Victoria sponge cake.

http://www.petershamnurseries.com/

143 Petersham Road, Richmond, TW10
020 8605 3627
Restaurant (Monday – Tuesday Closed) Wednesday – Sunday 12.00- 2.45
Cafe (Monday Closed) Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 4.30pm Sunday 11am-4.30pm

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Kenwood House

Penny Blood — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:34:58 +0000

Now I know I said I wouldn’t mention parks and the only reason I mention Hampstead Heath is because I got lost there the other day trying to find Kenwood House with Drage who wouldn’t admit he had no idea where he was going. Well I decided that on a sunny day it’s worth getting off the train at Gospel Oak or Hampstead Heath and walking up via Parliment Hill where you get an amazing view of London where no skyscapers can ever be built that will block a clear view of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A while back a friend who had just moved to Gospel Oak insisted on taking me up there which I found unbelievably tedious as I hate to walk anywhere if I can help it, but I have to admit that it was indeed worth it.

Hampstead Heath itself feels like the the next best thing to a day in the country as it’s huge, rambling, spacious and unmanicured with acres to literally get lost in. The Hampstead Ponds are also a huge attraction where people (not me) can go swimming, there is even a ladies only pond. Like lido’s and sunsets, people seem to get very excited over them, I personally don’t get it. I hate swimming and outdoors? in Britain?…..???

Kenwood House is a stately home situated at the top of the Heath with a great tea room and a lovely outdoor seating area with great cakes, soup, salad, coffee, tea, that kind of thing. It’s a perfect setting although I brought the average age down by about 30 years.

http://www.companyofcooks.com

The Brew House, Kenwood House, Hampstead Lane, London, NW3 7JR
0208 341 5384
Monday – Sunday 9am-6pm

Sketch the Parlour

Penny Blood — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:22:23 +0000

Often, I find the best way to ease into a conversation with someone you have just met is to talk about things you both hate – talking about something you both love inevitably can lead to who likes it more or who liked it first. With Sketch love and hate swing dramatically depending on whom you are talking to. I will find any excuse to come here but I think afternoon tea is my favourite. The Parlour is an eclectic mix of Louis XIV furniture and black perspex with modern yet tasteful Warhol style paintings. It’s totally Nouveau Riche but that’s better than No Riche at all. Afternoon tea is a tier of miniature scones and homemade jam with a pot of tea in a gold teapot. It will set you back £10 and is a complete rip-off but whatever it’s worth the chance of seeing a member of the Spice Girls. Sketch makes no attempt to hide the fact that it thinks it’s cooler than you are.

http://www.sketch.uk.com/

9 Conduit Street, London, W1S 2XJ
020 7659 4500
Monday – Friday 8am-2am Saturday 10am-2pm

Sketch the Gallery

Loafing

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:57:49 +0000

On a sunny day I will tear myself away from a busy schedule of staring out the window and take a stroll through Victoria Park to a bourgeois little tea room in Lauriston village, find myself a good spot by the window and select a large piece of some kind of pie and a cup of coffee. “Key lime pie is made of what exactly? Kiwis and limes?” “ No, limes from Key West, it’s famous for it, it’s the only kind of pie you can get down there”, someone is telling someone else. The soft grey interior, brushed wooden chairs, wooden tables, wooden counter is a bit Laura Ashley, but I still appreciate it when people go for a look and stick with it – style is about consistency and the selection of pies, cheesecake, quiches, brownies and muffins, all home baked, are classic indeed.

http://www.loafing.co.uk/

79 Lauriston Road, Victoria Park, London E9 7HJ
020 8986 0777

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Louis Pâtisserie

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:57:14 +0000

Situated on Hampstead High Street, this little Hungarian patisserie has the most delectable cakes you can imagine, page after page the menu will tempt you with outrageously delicious things to clog you arteries. It reminds me of when I was in Romania and my friend and I would visit every bakery choosing the most absurd looking cake we could find, I think it’s an Eastern European thing. Louis Patisserie has been here since 1963 and so have the waitresses it appears. Staffed by a troupe of old ladies from behind the Iron Curtain they are Hungary’s finest export of communist charm. They briskly usher you to a table (if there is one, otherwise you are sharply and impatiently told to stop blocking the entrance) at which point, if you are ordering some kind of cake a tray is thrust in front of you to make your selection which had better be a quick one as they don’t have all day. However once you are comfortably seated in front of your slice of poppy seed cake or tiramisu with a nice pot of tea in surroundings that hark back to another era, it all becomes worth the infamous grisly service.

Louis Patisserie, 32 Heath Street, Hampstead, NW3 6TE
020 7435 9908
Monday – Sunday 9am-6pm

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The Cake Hole

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:56:43 +0000

Hidden at the back of ‘Vintage Heaven’, a vintage china shop on Columbia Road, is the perfect English tearoom. Then again that is the ‘look’ they’re going for; ‘a perfect English tea room’. They serve good tea and coffee and have a selection of the most delicious cakes (the best stodgy Victoria sponge cake I’ve found to date) bought in specially from the famous Primrose bakery in Primrose Hill all lovingly served on old kitsch china tea sets. It’s only open on weekends so on a nice day it’s advised to get there early as it gets full up and sold out fast. The furniture looks like someone has raided your grandmother’s living room and the walls decorated with a selection of gaudy tapestries I overhear the owner justify as “…we’re going for a ‘Turner Prize look’, individually disgusting but it works altogether”.

http://vintageheaven.co.uk/

82 Columbia Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 7QB
01277 215968
Saturday 12 noon to 6.00pm Sunday 8.30am to 5.00pm

Meals at Heals

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:56:05 +0000

Situated inside the Heals store, Meals at Heals is so wrong yet so right with a description that can only start with “Once upon a time…”. It resembles something out of a fairytale. It has a pastel colour scheme and tables that look like they have icing dripping off them. It’s very Scandinavian, a fact that saves it from being either tacky or camp. It’s designed by FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) which makes it truly stylish to boot. As a Peyton and Byrne restaurant it does do spectacular cupcakes and great food, serving a proper lunch and brunch. If I were meeting a few friends during the day, I’d suggest here since it’s inexpensive and not too busy so you can stay as long as you like. It even has some large welcoming couches and it’s spacious so you don’t need to be conscious of other people listening in on your conversations and the staff are on hand but don’t bother you.

http://www.heals.co.uk/pcat/healcafe

I work in Fitzrovia and I’m loathe to spend my lunch break doing any of the things I should be doing in my lunch break. This includes eating lunch or running errands. It is therefore desirable to nip out at frequent intervals and do the things I need to do in five minutes (so my boss just thinks I have gone to the bathroom) so I can spend my lunch break in Topshop with everyone else. My daily list might include any of the following; 1. buy peaches 2. buy sewing thread in a new colour 3. replenish stock of fake gold jewellery 4. check newsagents for new magazines 5. buy cupcake to get me through the afternoon, my choice being Peyton and Byrne located on the ground floor of the Heals store. These cupcakes are just so delicious. No other cupcakes compare. It’s the raspberry and coconut one. I don’t even know what it’s made of. The butter cream icing is so thick and smooth it transcends all other butter cream icing. The sensational vanilla sponge cake is spectacular in itself but when you discover it secretly concealing a real life, hidden raspberry it just pushes me over the edge. The posh bathroom tiles might sound like a strange design choice but somehow it manages to make all the food all the more enticing.

http://www.peytonandbyrne.com/index.asp

Meals 1st Floor, Heal’s 196 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 7LQ
020 7580 2522
Monday – Wednesday 10am-6pm, Thursday 10am-8pm, Friday 10am-6.30pm
Saturday 9.30am-6.30pm Sunday 12pm-6pm

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Maison Bertaux

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:55:22 +0000

Alexa Chung claims to love the strawberry tarts here at Maison Bertaux, although we know it’s unlikely she would ever eat a strawberry tart, that’s the kind of crap celebrities say in weekend supplements. If you go here when the rest of Soho ISN’T and you manage to get a little tiny table with a French bistro chequered table cloth, tea in a bone china tea cup and a delightful little patisserie then you’re lucky as it’s quite special. Upstairs it’s more caff than patisserie but this only adds to the appeal. It’s the oldest patisserie in London and certainly has the most charm. I’ll warn you though that the man who runs the place is a class ‘A’ asshole – he gives you all of three seconds to make your order then shouts at you to get out of the way.

Maison Bertaux, 28 Greek St, London, W1D 5DQ
020 7437 6007
Monday – Saturday 8.30am-11pm Sunday 8.30am-7pm

Louis Pâtisserie

Primrose Bakery

Penny Blood — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:17:38 +0000

Perhaps a bit out of the way, but if you’re in London on a sunny day then it’s worth a trip up to Primrose Hill for a cup of tea and a cupcake. Half 50′s tea room half old fashioned sweet shop, the American retro furniture and cabinet of cakes including cupcakes of every kind, Victoria sponge cake and raspberry coconut cake make it a little haven for all those who put food before fashion. Melrose and Morgan, the chichi deli across the road is worth a mention, if you would rather fill up on a hearty sandwich filled with delicious chutney and dead animal of choice before going across the road to stuff your face with cake. Nearby Primrose Hill has spectacular views of London and is one of the nicest parks in the city.

http://www.primrosebakery.org.uk/

69 Gloucester Avenue, London NW1 8LD
020 7483 4222
Monday – Saturday 8.30am-6pm Sunday 10am-5.30pm