Afternoon tea at Marco Pierre White review: Cosy and tasty

Whether you enjoy the savoury delights of the sandwiches, the richness of the scones and cakes or the floral teas there's usually something for everyone to enjoy.

Usually, the cost for an afternoon tea is quite reasonable at around £15 to £20 per person, and it might make people wonder what a more expensive option might offer.

One such chain of restaurants that offers traditional afternoon teas at a higher price is the ones attached to the name of Marco Pierre White.

The chef and restaurateur has earned multiple Michelin stars for various establishments and has trained many highly-regarded chefs including Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal.

@uktoday_ Will you try out a traditional afternoon tea at Mr White’s in Leicester Square? #afternoontea #leicestersquare ♬ original sound - UKToday 🇬🇧 Newsquest

Restaurants with his name attached usually come with a great reputation so would that extend to its afternoon teas?

Traditional afternoon teas at Marco Pierre White restaurants retail for £25 per person and go up if you factor prosecco or other alcoholic beverages into the equation.

However, if you want to make a saving on such an endeavour you can make use of buyagift.com.

They offer a voucher for an afternoon tea for two for £35, saving you £15 in the process, which can be found on their website here.

Making use of their voucher I treated my mum to a day out in London and we headed off to hopefully enjoy an afternoon tea at Mr White's in Leicester Square.

Inside Mr White's for traditional afternoon tea

We arrived at Mr White's and were taken inside to our table. Outside of any review of the food and drink the staff were impeccable offering a great level of service.

The restaurant itself had a quite cosy level of ambience with fairly dimmed lights and a low level of music meaning conversation was easy to hear.

After we were asked what teas we wanted the drinks were brought out only after a couple of minutes with the food not long after.

The different parts of the afternoon tea were arranged in different compartments (Image: Newsquest)

It was brought out on a bookshelf-like display with different sections of the food being separated.

The presentation couldn't be faulted, but what was the food and drink like?

The tea

I am not a frequent tea drinker so went with something I thought was fairly safe in the lemon and ginger tea.

I went with the lemon and ginger tea (Image: Newsquest)

As stated on the menu the drink was from Teapigs, and it seems they are a pretty decent choice to pick from.

The flavour came through very effectively and it was very warming to contrast the cold we had just come in from.

The sandwiches

There were various options for the sandwiches, which featured smoked salmon and cream cheese, ham and mustard, roast beef with horseradish and cucumber and cream cheese.

My mum is vegetarian so we arranged to have some more options when we were booking the afternoon tea.

The sandwiches were a bit mixed overall (Image: Newsquest)

Along with more cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches there were also options such as an arancini ball which my mum was a big fan of.

This section of the afternoon tea was probably the weakest for me, although I did really enjoy the salmon and cream cheese sandwiches.

However, the roast beef and ham sandwiches had perhaps a bit too much horseradish and mustard for my personal taste.

It ended up drowning out the other flavours for me, but it may well work for others who have similar combinations more often.

The scones

Each person gets one scone in the afternoon tea at Mr White's but the one you get is definitely quality.

The scone was high-quality (Image: Newsquest)

Its soft, rich nature compliments the clotted cream and jam you get to put on top.

I personally go with the Devon format for scones (cream on the bottom, jam on top) but whatever way you choose you'll be happy.

The cake

What might have been my favourite part of the afternoon tea was the cakes.

Firstly it affords you a macaron each, which had a slight crunch giving way to a soft middle which was very tasty.

The macaron was enjoyable (Image: Newsquest)

Meanwhile, each person gets three different slices of cake in lemon cheesecake, carrot cake and a chocolate and caramel mirror slice.

Overall, they were soft, moist and brilliantly sweet, capping off the tea in stunning fashion.

The chocolate and caramel mirror slice was a particular highlight (Image: Newsquest)

My personal favourite of the bunch was the chocolate and caramel mirror slice.

Is afternoon tea at Mr White's worth the money?

With the vast majority of the afternoon tea being high-quality, I'd argue the cost is worth it, and with the saving you can make through buyagift.com it makes it that extra bit sweeter.