Forget shoe shopping, make your new pastime an indulgent and refined afternoon savouring tea and scones. Here’s our current faves…
The Parlour @ Sketch
Always a sensory delight, The Parlour’s crazy mish-mash of interior décor (one-off cushy velvet sofas and chairs, old bureaus posing as tea tables and insane lamp shades and paintings) plus old school approach to afternoon tea – full on menu with scones, cakes, pastries, wide selection of teas – is a perfectly surreal and comfy way to while away an afternoon away from Oxford Street busyness. The Cream Tea (£7.95) comprises three yummy little scones, a Chinese soupspoon of clotted cream, sweet jam and strawberries and grapes.
www.sketch.uk.com
9 Conduit Street, London, W1S 2XG, 0870 777 4488
Nearest tube – Oxford Circus
Tea Palace
Like the grand old tearooms in Bombay, The Tea Palace is regal and impressive with its white table-clothed tables and window coverings. An oasis of calm, sit back and browse the fantastic array of teas – (whites, greens, blacks – it’s all there!) and get ready for delicious, baked on the premises, chunky scones (with or without sultanas) and lashings of organic clotted cream and jam (£5.50). There are loads of cakes and desserts and a full menu if you’re hungering for more.
www.teapalace.co.uk
175 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2SB, 0207 727 2600
Nearest tube – Notting Hill
