High Tea @ Hotel Windsor

It's the first day of a new year and our fearless team of eat-ors are doing something a little different - we're off for High Tea. When you think High Tea, you think of silver tiered trays in elegant surrounds and the best place we think fits that description is the Hotel Windsor.

The offering today is a little different to normal - apart from the usual high tea components, a dessert buffet is on offer and we've got three hours to indulge.

It begins with a round of Rosé Champagne



as we wait for our tiered offering. There seemed to be some kind of problem as we watched other tables who had arrived later being served - perhaps the puppy dog eyes worked and the waiters seemed to click that our order had been mislaid.

Eventually, it did turn up



From a distance it looks impressive enough...



on the bottom layer are the finger sandwiches - Smoked salmon - egg, mayonnaise and chives - virginia ham and mango pickle - chicken, apple and mustard - traditional cucumber and sour cream



and in the middle layer, savoury muffins - pie - quiche



and finally on the top, baked raisin and vanilla scones served with double cream and jams (on the table).

While presentable, it wasn't well executed. It just had that mass produced feel about it - the middle section seemed to have come out of a microwave, the scones certainly weren't light and fresh and the sandwiches were uninspiring.

However, we still had the dessert buffet and while I didn't take any pictures of the buffet itself, I have got pictures of some of the items found there.





This is seriously just a fraction of what was on offer - there was also an ice cream buffet, a chocolate fountain and one person making crepes to order. It's a serious sugar high and the items presented here were all excellent.

So to sum up, while the dessert buffet was excellent, if you'd come here for just the high tea then you would be disappointed and it is disappointing that the high tea part of it, much like the Windsor, just seemed so dated and tired. It's a clash of cultures of sorts, the elegant high tea and the all you can stuff in your face dessert buffet, you just can't have them together.


The details:

Hotel Windsor
111 Spring Street
Melbourne

Phone: 9633 6004

Afternoon Tea:
Monday to Friday: 2.30pm($49 per person)
Saturday & Sunday: Midday and 2.30pm ($69 per person - includes dessert buffet)

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