Its been over a year since I’ve been to a proper Afternoon Tea so I was really looking forward to today’s sitting at The Berkeley. Actually I thought that today’s afternoon tea would be pretty spectacular. The concept behind Prêt-à-Portea is a designer afternoon tea “inspired by the themes and colours of the fashion world” with a menu changing every six months as the seasons change.

Today’s afternoon tea was inspired by the Spring/Summer 2009 fashion collections including the designs by Josh Goot, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Michael Kors, Hervé Léger, Balmain and Oscar de la Renta. The designer theme even goes all the way to the place setting with Paul Smith designer ware. It was so cute that I wanted to take the stuff home! LOL.

The Caramel Room, where the afternoon tea is hosted, is not particularly large with a couple of larger tables plus about maybe 12-15 other smaller tables sprinkled about the room so pretty intimate – no piano though. We were served by about three different waiters and waitresses and generally the service was very friendly and efficient. Entertainingly the guy who brought our sandwiches and dessert layers out had a laser pointer to point to the various different items as he described them. Shame I couldn’t understand him very well through his thick accent! Ha ha.

The tea menu is surprisingly not huge with about eight loose leaf options and six herbal infusions however the variety was pretty different. Rita, Rache and I all had the same idea and wanted to go for the Chocolate Mint Truffle though in the end Rita started off with the Pear Caramel so we could try a couple of different teas. To be fair they allow you to change your teas as many times as you want though each time you do, as is right, they will bring you a new set of tea cups and tea pot. They also offer you any sort of coffee or hot chocolate if you want.

The sandwiches consisted of six different varieties of which we got a plate each. The sandwiches included two types of cheese sandwiches, a smoked salmon sandwich, a ham, egg and mayo and a chicken sandwich. Not a bad variety though we felt that the bread on our first plate of sandwiches was a little dry. It was pleasing to know that the food was unlimited so you could have as many sandwiches and desserts as you wanted!

Speaking of desserts check out how good this looks:

Pretty awesome right? In actual fact the lower tier of our dessert stand were savoury items – including prawn skewers, tuna sashimi, red pepper canapé and some coconut milk soup in a shot glass deal.

The second tier consisted of Lavin duo of blueberry and passion fruit mousse with flowing bright yellow meringue, Balmain almond macaroon jacket filled with white chocolate and pistachio ganache, Alexander McQueen ‘Elvie’ chocolate truffle tote wrapped in mint flavoured marzipan, Christian Louboutin coconut cream sponge cake shoe topped with metallic frill and Michael Kors red and blue striped Regatta dress cake of rich Valrhona chocolate.

The final tier was host to Hervé Léger vivid orange bikini vanilla biscuit with signature criss-cross banding, Christopher Kane clementine bavaroise with signature over-sized circles of pate de fruit, Oscar de la Renta black and white belted chocolate dress biscuit and the Josh Goot blocked dress of strawberry pannacotta and mango crème topped with kiwi marshmallows.

Okay – I had to put those descriptions on here because they were just very smart! I love how the chef managed to interpret the fashion into food! We couldn’t help ourselves and must have asked for about three repeats on the dessert. For a start we had to get enough repeats that we’d all get to taste everything but then after that we were just plaine greedy! Ha ha. After a while we couldn’t eat any more sugar though and had to reluctantly stop.

Afternoon tea at The Berkeley was something a little different and is definitely the most interesting of the ones I’ve been to so far. Not only was it a feast for the eyes but also for the stomach. I adored the selection of teas they have available. I was also impressed with the initiative of our waitress – we were at the end of or meal and there was one Alexander McQueen ‘Elvie’ chocolate truffle tote wrapped in mint flavoured marzipan leftover that I just couldn’t finished. I thought I would see if I could take it away even though I thought it might be too cheeky. However she surprised me by allowing me to take it away. Apparently they have boxes for just the thing plus she threw in Oscar de la Renta black and white belted chocolate dress biscuit into the box as well since the box was so massive and the bag not so much.

Rita, Rache and I had a fantastic time at The Berkeley – despite the chic cool of the room it felt relaxed and comfortable and at no time did we feel rushed to finish our afternoon tea. In fact from the feel of it many people that were having afternoon tea with us looked like they were there for the rest of the day!

I think, and this may be putting myself out there, but this was the best afternoon tea I’ve been to yet!