Afternoon tea at Sketch - 16 March

I considered 3 different venues when i was looking to take my friend Karin out for some late birthday treats on a Saturday. My 3 contenders were: The Langham (traditional & glamorous), The Sanderson (Modern & fun) or Sketch (modern and 2 michelin stars). In the end, Sketch won and that is where i booked us in.

We arrived in the afternoon following a fab Pedi at Margaret Dabbs
We entered the Gallery room which was huge and jam packed with people.. guess we were not the only ones with the idea of having afternoon tea on a Saturday.
Service was a bit so so with the waiters churning out the goods like a factory and it was not as serene and luxurious as i would have hoped.
So, what about the food? Well, style over substance in my opinion.. i like my food and i did not even finish it all. The sandwiches looked cute but again, looks are not everything. There were an egg mayo sandwich with a quails egg and caviar, a smoked salmon , cucumber sandwich and a hot toasted sandwich filled with melted cheese.. i could only have 1 bite of that one.. it was too rich with too much cheese.

For the sweet; the scones were nice and warm and came with an apple jam and a strawberry jam and the clotted cream of course. There were also a tapioca pudding with a jelly on top.. it tasted like a very sweet rice pudding/pannacotta. Nice but very very sweet. There were also assorted marshmallows but their flavours were not really distinguishable from each other. 

I quite like to bake macarons and so does my friend.. the macs served here were more like meriengues.. did not taste of almond nor were they chewy. the lime curd boats were just super sour and the little jellies with port and lavender were actually horrible. The mint chocolate eclairs looked pretty but were very disappointing... filled with the smallest amount of melted chocolate (no cream) which just made it a bit cloying in the mouth.. The best of the lot were the white chocolate and coconut lollipops... yum.. they tasted a bit like the white Ferrero Rocher chocs :-)

So, would i recommend the afternoon tea at Sketch..the answer is NO. I am going to try the Sanderson next time since they have the "Mad Hatter's tea" and i have heard a lot of good things about it.