Back in May, before I went away on honeymoon, I visited the recently refurbished St Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster, tucked behind busy Victoria Street and close to St James Park.
The interior of the hotel is pretty and lady-like with a gorgeous chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. The signature restaurant of the hotel is the Caxton Grill, serving Modern European food cooked on the Josper Grill, I’ve not tried it yet but my mum is a fan!
I would be dining at the tea lounge, located at the top of the grand staircase above.
Joining me in a tea for three were Liesl Lamare and Mimi Zouch. I had met Liesl at the Olivier Laudus Wedding Accessories boutique launch and we soon discovered that we had lots in common and vowed to meet again after my wedding madness was over. Mimi and Liesl met at a wedding planning academy and realised they shared a similar work ethic, strong business heads and a love of weddings. They set up Zouch and Lamare and quickly established themselves as leading wedding planners. Their high standards and dedication to both suppliers and clients means that the weddings that they produce are second to none and always totally unique in order to suit every couple.
The three of us settled down to enjoy our tea and a catch up. The St Ermin’s Tea comes with half a bottle of champagne each, which was a perfect way to toast my nuptials and Liesl and Mimi’s fantastic success.
We chose our teas and admired the gorgeous girly crockery.
We were having such a lovely time talking about weddings, honeymoons and blogs that I forget to take many photos but St Ermins presented the tea beautifully on a rack that reminded me of bookshelves.
Sandwiches were chicken and mango, prawn marie rose, cucumber and cream cheese, beef and horseradish and smoked salmon and caviar. The classic combinations were very tasty and it was great to enjoy a taste of the traditional, but I would have liked another more innovative savoury too. The only element I wasn’t to keen on was the cranberry bread used for one of the sandwiches, but I do love the look of pink bread!
Scones were orange, plain and raisin and were deliciously light and fluffy
Sadly, I didn’t get any good close ups of the cakes though these were the highlights of the tea. I also must confess I didn’t try any myself as I was going to the Anges Sucre Macaron event and I didn’t want eat too much sugar in the week before my honeymoon. But the other ladies raved about the peanut butter cake with chocolate and salted peanuts and rated the rum and lime chocolate truffle. I stared at the juniper and lemon macaron but decided to save myself for the evening’s treats. Have I mentioned I love macarons…In summary, good cakes (apparently) but more exciting savouries maybe? Anyway the hotel was gorge, champagne flowed and the company was so fabulous, a lavender infused scone or avant garde canape might have gone unnoticed anyway 🙂
St Ermin’s Hotel
Caxton Street
London
SW1H 0QW
020 7222 7888
