Afternoon Tea at Fortnum & Mason in London

I got to spend my birthday in London on our honeymoon, and the ONE thing I wanted to do was have Afternoon High Tea at the famed Fortnum & Mason.

If you aren’t familiar, Fortnum & Mason is the Queen’s favorite grocer – it’s an upscale grocery / department store with fancy teas, cookies, and many other beautiful things. You walk in and want it all!

They are a couple of locations in London, but their 300-year-old flagship store in Picadilly is where the magic is.

On the top floor is The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, where they serve their afternoon tea complete with cakes, sandwiches, scones, and of course, tea!

Make a Reservation

First of all, to get in, you need to make a reservation. As soon as you know you’ll be in London and want to go, you should book a table. It was all full when we checked, and I was so sad! But luckily a couple spots opened up that morning when they opened for business. We immediately snagged one of those tables using OpenTable. Score!

The Store

When you arrive at the store, wow, it is a sight to see! It looks majestic even from the outside. Since it was near Christmastime when we went, it was also beautifully decorated for the holiday season.

Since the tea salon is on the top floor, you go up these red carpeted staircases from one amazing floor to another until you get to the top.

The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon

Once you arrive to the salon, you walk into this big open space with comfortable seating in the waiting area and a counter to check in. You feel like a VIP walking in here!

We waited for our table to be ready and then got graciously seated with menus. The service is impeccable and all the staff is so polite.

So excited!

From the menu, you can choose different sets: Afternoon Tea, Savory Afternoon Tea, Vegetarian, or High Tea. I chose the classic Afternoon Tea, which comes with the all the below items.

If you come with someone, I recommend one person getting Afternoon Tea and the other person getting Savory so that you can try each other’s. The food and tea are unlimited!

Next you choose a tea flavor from their extensive menu. I’ve never seen so many tea options in my life!

They have all different types of teas (black or green) and special blends that are named after royal occasions like the Queen’s Jubilee or Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Royal Wedding!

My tea arrives! They pour it into this silver tea strainer that looks like it has fish fins, and it catches all the loose tea leaves. Then you put it into the container on the left and enjoy your tea.

It looks like ordinary tea but boy, it tastes so delicate and rich.

Then our food came. It’s hard to see the other person with the 3-tier cake stands on the table, ha!

This is the top layer of tiny cakes. They were so delicately made and very rich, but not too sweet. Each was better than the next!

Middle tier. The scones. One is plain and one has fruit in it. Very dense and filling. There are different spreads and jam you can eat with them. The clotted cream was amazing!

Sandwiches – my favorite part! They were so good. We asked for refills on these!

Vince’s savory tea set came with this egg thing called “Oeuf Drumkilbo” with lobster in it. It was impeccable. Got seconds of this too.

Pretty soon, I was feeling incredibly full. From tiny sandwiches, how is that possible??

With Vince’s savory tea option, you can also choose a slice of cake from the cart afterwards. We couldn’t even imagine eating anymore, so we packed it home.

They pack it for you in this beautiful to-go box. It’s like a gift!

Okay also the bathroom is really nice! They have this pomegranate rose hand soap that smells magnificent. You can conveniently buy it downstairs from their store, but sadly it was closed by the time we were done eating.

So that was our high tea experience in London! It did not disappoint! Lots of people were celebrating their birthdays there too and the waiters would go around singing for them.

Later in our trip, we visited the Fortnum & Mason store at St. Pancras and bought some gifts to take home like shortbread and tea bags. We ended up getting this assorted set of 120 tea bags, so we could take a little bit of London home with us! 😉

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