Never had tea in the city before, but a special offer came through for Tower 42's Vertigo bar and I thought it'd be rude not to :-p , considering I wanted to catch up with a friend that had just returned from her honeymoon.
Getting up to the venue on the 42nd floor felt like mission impossible- three reception desks, one security check, two esclators and one lift later we arrived to some stunning views.
We were seated by the window with views across to Mansion House, the London Eye and beyond. We were soon served with a glass of champagne and were enjoying chatting when we realised we hadn't been served any food 25mins after arriving.
Just a I began getting twitchy that I was going to be late back from lunch, a charming man with a tiered cake stand arrived. My initial opinion was slightly disappointed as there were no traditional sandwiches to be seen, only two tiny morsels of toasted bread with smoked salmon and a piece of quiche (non refillable). Tier two contained two tarts; chocolate and passionfruit (zingy) and tier 3 tiny blueberry scone and a plain traditional scone (cream tasted like it was soured or with yoghurt, unusual! )
At this point I had to ask for the tea to be served (not loose leaf-teabag). It began losing points on service at this point. I asked for a clean plate after the quiche as it left savoury squigginess on the plate, which I didn't fancy with the sweet tarts - an unusual request it seems.
Pretty much as soon as we'd finished we needed to leave. No waiters to be seen, so I return to the reception desk to enquire if we could leave because I had pre-paid. I couldn't believe that they asked me to pay a service charge - voluntary of course!
To sum up. The place had really nice views, but had a long way to go to match up to proper afternoon tea. Was more heavily weighted on dessert and not much savoury. At full price £32 - way overpriced.
