Afternoon tea can be fun and quirky! If you are in a playful mood and love trying unusual food experiences, look no more. Science Afternoon Tea may be all you need to spice up your weekend afternoon :).
I’m a big tea lover, and since I moved to England, I’ve tried many traditional afternoon teas. At one point, though, I wanted to experience more than just a tasty cuppa and pastries.
That’s when I read about the award-winning Ampersand’s Science Afternoon Tea which is not just a delectable dining experience but also a journey of fun and discovery. What a nice way to escape from a daily routine and food boredom!
HOW TO BOOK
I booked the Afternoon Tea experience for a friend and myself on the hotel’s website here. You can choose between different options: Science Afternoon Tea (with or without champagne) and Kids Sci-fi Afternoon Tea.
As much as we feel like big kids sometimes, we went for an adult option with a glass of bubbly (why not treat yourself from time to time?!:))
We booked just a few days in advance, and there were many time slots available until 18.30 (on weekdays) and 19.30 (weekends). It means that you can get your afternoon tea in the evening (that’s quite unusual)!
AMPERSAND HOTEL
Location
The Ampersand Hotel is located in one of my favourite areas in London – South Kensington. It’s just a stroll away from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum. It might be a good idea to combine a visit to one of the famous museums with a nice afternoon tea experience afterwards.
Ampersand Hotel is just a minute’s walk from South Kensington tube station, served by the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines.
Ambience
We booked our afternoon tea in the Drawing Rooms. We loved its bright and elegant interior with colourful furnishing and eclectic, slightly quirky décor. Luckily, we were seated at the window, which is always my favourite spot in any location (perfect for photography!).
Dress Code
Although the hotel combines a luxurious feel with a relaxed ambience, wearing something too casual wouldn’t make me feel comfortable. Dressing up a little wasn’t a bad idea. You can’t go wrong with a smart-casual outfit.
AFTERNOON TEA EXPERIENCE
The hotel offers vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free menus. I chose the vegetarian option.
The Afternoon tea experience felt like a science experiment. We enjoyed making our own lemonades using pipettes of flavouring, a syringe of blue syrup, and a powder packet.
We mixed it all into blue and yellow fizzy drinks. It felt like a science class back in high school, with the difference that it was definitely more exciting. Besides, you could taste the result of your experiment :).
The Charles Heidsieck Champagne was delicious. The tea was just good. I doubt it would impress tea connoisseurs (but maybe I’m just too picky when it comes to tea).
The food tray looked quite spectacular and was 100% instaworthy. The top-level with space-themed treats had a container with dry ice. A waiter made artificial fog mixing it with water. We both liked the smoky special effect (keep your cameras ready!)
I personally enjoyed the whole experience and the ambience more than the food itself. It doesn’t mean that the food was not tasty, though. My truffle egg mayo sandwich, roasted vegetable brioche bun, and a roll with sundried tomato, cream cheese and spinach were all very good.
There were so many awesome looking treats to try that we didn’t eat them all. Unfortunately, I had no room for all the sweets and the scones (even if they looked so tempting with Cornish clotted cream, strawberry preserve and passion fruit curd).
I tried a chocolate spaceman, a quirky looking apple, cinnamon & blackberry jelly served in a petri dish (it looked straight out of a laboratory), a macaron (you can use a pipette to add some flavouring to it), a mini dinosaur biscuit and milk chocolate fossil (we had to excavate it from the “soil” made of chocolate crumble).
They were all good, but macaron and chocolate were (and probably will always be) my favourite treats.
Generally, we both enjoyed the experience. Chatting while sipping champagne, making our own lemonades, excavating chocolate fossils, fuelling our tummies with unique looking treats is not what you do every day 😉 And that’s exactly what made it so special.
Here is the link to my short video about Ampersand’s Science Afternoon Tea experience: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CQE48j8iZZr/
