Sweet things are the speciality at this girlish tea room, a sister to White City’s Butterscotch bakery. There were just four savoury items on my lunchtime visit, but platters of cupcakes and pretty pastries in the window promised a sugar high.
The best of these was a strawberry and cream cake, delicately constructed out of feather-light vanilla layers and summer berries. Compared to that velvety dairy cloud, my peanut butter brownie was unremarkable, and almost everything else disappointed: a fat wedge of chicken and sweet potato frittata was solid, but the quinoa and mushroom version proved an odd combination. The salads on offer were lacklustre: a classic beet and feta combo undressed, the pasta with greens very bland.
The white paper blooms pasted to the walls and glass baubles hanging from the ceiling mean this is a snug, sweet-looking spot (they also serve tea in cute elephant teapots). But the basement room seemed worn and tatty. Despite the frills – if you’re after a good tea and not just a good photo, you could do a lot better.