2 Milana Katorgina - 3 months ago
We were really looking forward to coming here for an afternoon tea but everything has gone wrong from the start.
We booked well in advance for the 13:00 on 11.04 specifically for afternoon tea, prepaid R1700 and even called to ensure the booking is made.
While driving in we were met with an extremely rude security personnel but we just proceeded to the venue. We were seated at the Vista Bar and Lounge, not provided menu or offered anything we were left alone. We thought that, perhaps since we all came for an afternoon tea they will just bring it out. But after 20 minutes of no attention at all we managed go find someone who said that afternoon tea actually only starts in 50 minutes… We planned our day around this appointment and now we need to wait for an hour despite making a booking. In fact it sounded as it was all our fault for coming early, not clearly their mistake.
Now let’s move to the food part. My favorite part of an afternoon tea is scones. Warm, beautiful scones. On the photo you can see what some of them looked like (completely not what is advertised on the website!), in addition they were completely cold as they were brought out on the tray with everything else. The rest of the food was alright, but nothing memorable to justify the pricing of this place.
Teas were average at best and they came in tea bags, we tried 5 teas and 3 of them were ridiculously bitter.
One person had dietary requirements, which we noted in advance and he was served with nuts and dried fruits instead of real desserts, which again is not really suitable for the R500+pp price tag.
Overall, it’s a beautiful venue, but there is a great amount of afternoon tea places around the city with significantly better offering. We didn’t leave hungry but we certainly didn’t leave satisfied.
