One of the gifts we were given for our 40th wedding anniversary back in October was a voucher for 'Tea at the Ritz', an eagerly anticipated treat. I thought I would book for sometime in February as this would serve as a lovely treat at the point we were getting fed up with winter weather. So in January I rang up to book and discovered that the first available Saturday (if you wanted to have tea roughly at tea time rather than 11:30 in the morning) was August! At this point we regrouped and agreed the thing to do would be to take a day off work and managed to book for the end of April a couple of days after my birthday for the 5:30 sitting - we were on!
Before going for tea we took in the David Bailey Stardust Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which I shall be writing about in a future post, Then we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and walked along Piccadilly towards the Ritz Hotel.
We passed the Royal Academy at Burlington House, popping into the courtyard to view the fountains, then it was on to the Burlington Arcade which comes equipped with doormen
The Burlington Arcade is home to one of my favourite shops Laduree, home of the perfect macaroon. We first discovered them on holiday in Paris and we thrilled when a shop opened in London, they are an expensive and rare treat however! (and yes we did buy some)
How to choose? (salted caramel is my favourites)
Of course I couldn't resist a little street photography
This lot were trying to figure out where to go
Then we had arrived! The decor was pretty plush as you might expect, rather reminiscent of the Palace of Sans Souci in Berlin
The tea, which started with a glass of champagne, was as you might expect, delicious and there was plenty of it.
The service was, of course, excellent
and we had a wonderful time