Five o´clock tea. Claridge vs. Ritz

[castiglione]

Past week my wife and myself spent some days in London. We decided to pit the Ritz against the Claridge at this most British-and Spanish time, five o´clock. British tea. Spanish bullfighting.
Service was definitely better at Claridge. It had this mixture of familiarity and yet distance that is the mark of true professionalism. The crowd was older at the Ritz and no messing with ties or jackets was allowed. The result was the usual ludicrous look of guys anybody would have avoided on the street wearing ties and jackets- obviously borrowed. Nothing of the kind happened at the Claridge were sneakers and non- tied/ non jacketed guys rubbed elbows with immaculately dressed ladies. In short, real life.
At the Ritz we had to serve ourselves the tea, something hazardous given that the handle had no wood and the pot was burning. Food was simply excellent at the Claridge. Not so much at the Ritz were the white bread was stale, the scones industrial- no clotted cream but butter and not exceptional- and the sandwiches rough. Cakes very much the same except for the bitter Sacher, truly excellent. I am sorry to report, on the contrary, that the pistacchio cake they cut for us was tasteless. At the Claridge the sandwiches were memorable. Very likely the best salmon I ever had and I have lived more than six years in different salmon countries. The cucumber sandwich, something I abhor, was perfectly dressed with cheese and ruccola. Fact is we are going to (try to) replicate it at home. The scone was ten on ten and the clotted cream with it superb. Either Cornish or Devonshire I imagine. A box of complimentary tea finished the experience where the only serious shortcoming was Lady Windermere´s absence. The closest thing to a 3 star Michelin restaurant short of the 3 starred restaurant itself.
Next time we will challenge the Connaught against the Dorchester. We accept suggestions, BTW.
Little add on. Thanks to the LL members for having opened my eyes to the Wellesley. If you succeed in getting a place in the room at the left of the gate (door closed, no noise) the experience is truly rare both in service and food. Two comments from my wife after a magnificent continental breakfast with all the viennoiseries of the world.
"Are you sure this is milk and not cream?"
"After a breakfast like this nobody would say the croissant was not invented in England"
I agree. And I knew the days when croissant was a non entity in the Isles. Well, a life ago.

[hectorm]

We accept suggestions, BTW.

A las cinco de la tarde, a las cinco en punto de la tarde......
Hello Castiglione,
for sentimental reasons, my default watering hole for afternoon tea in London is the Thames Foyer at The Savoy. But although it has been superbly refurbished recently (glass dome, huge birdcage) I still find it difficult to recommend. My heart is in it but I´m painfully aware that its service is flawed, sandwiches and patisserie are good but no top, and there is a general air of style-over-substance in the experience.
If you loved the Claridge, I think you would like the Dorchester too (make your reservations for the main tea room in the back since some people are directed to the small ladies tea room of the hotel Spa). I have never been at the Connaught.
BTW, you meant The Wolseley (oohh, in my mind I can smell the pastries) and not The Wellesley, didn't you?

[castiglione]

Sorry Hector, indeed Wolseley. Excuse the mistakes of a troubled traveller. I will follow your advice and challenge Dorchester against Connaught, no Savoy. And please, go to the Richoux on South Audley St. and sit at the little room at the end and right of the main hall. Just sit. It is worth the effort. No renovations there, no nothing. No brioches either and therefore no practice of your battle like skills on the hopeless pastry. On the positive side. Greek (of the shining grieves) and Latin come back to the syllabus. Poetry too. By heart. My youth vindicated. We were not so wrong after all.

[castiglione]

I owe the LL my next review on tea venues. First to explain why I did not go to the Dorchester. Its web page says they serve tea in shifts and this fits not in my idea of refinement.
The two contenders left were the Lanesborough and the Connaught.
The Lanesborough has a very convenient location and the premises looked impressive, they are indeed impressive. Tea is another story. The glass dome had a very precise therapeutic origin and it was not very difficult to imagine Florence Nightingale hanging out there and saying: "This light will make my soldiers good!" ( I never bought the Bloomsbury message on her Eminence, I like what she did)
Tea was nothing to write the LL about so we will leave at that. The Connaught was a different story. To begin with you are supposed to make a reservation prior to your arrival, which gives you an idea of the venue mores. Then the setting was simply superb and not therapeutic but refined. The glass wall departed slightly from the straight line to follow a soft arch-like curve and present us with a blessing of clarity. We fell in love with the hall, named L´Espelette, after a Basque place called Ezpeleta, famed for its peppers.
Finger sandwiches were simply good. Confectionery was another pair of shoes. Definitely the very best that money can buy. Probably it is a bit unfair to compare the deeds of a well known and starred "patissier" and those of a normal hotel. But in these matters the result is all that counts and the result was, believe me, unique. I would like to give a very special mention to Ms. Christine Ferber jams that go with the service. I love apricot jam. I have tried many. I have eaten the fruit in their places of origin in Central Asia too. Never ever have I tried something like Ms. Ferber reading of the fruit. The soft pulp is there in all its glorious summer like and golden taste. Yet the anticipation of fall offers itself in gusts of slight acidity. ¡Oh dear! I bought some jars; they offer them for sale.
In short. My conclusions of all these outings.
1.- Honours cum laude and First Excellence. Ms. Christine Ferber s jams.
2.- Honours. The setting and confectionery at the Connaught. Service and finger sandwiches at Claridge.
And with these, dear Members I take leave. No more reviews. I have discovered I am not cut for gastronomic appraisals and besides I doubt very much finger sandwiches are my cup of tea. I am glad, though, I discovered Ms. Ferber s jams. I will have to pilgrim to Alsace to pay my respects.

[davidhuh]

No more reviews. I have discovered I am not cut for gastronomic appraisals and besides I doubt very much finger sandwiches are my cup of tea.

Dear Castiglione,

this is most entertaining, thank you - and you are very much cut for gastronomic appraisals
Glad to hear somebody else has a passion for apricot jam! My favourite is by some English lady who retired in the south of France.

cheers, David

[castiglione]

Dear David. I was straight with you and everybody else and uncovered my sources. How come you do not give us this British lady´s address or whereabouts? How very disappointing!
Well, just to show you how fair I am I will give you an extra tip on apricot marmalade (marmelade in French, confusing words) in London. The Wolseley offers home made apricot marmalade. But most of the waiters do not know it and claim the only brand is industrial. That is not the case. Insist and they will bring you the real thing. Bow and exit.

[davidhuh]

Dear David. I was straight with you and everybody else and uncovered my sources. How come you do not give us this British lady´s address or whereabouts? How very disappointing!

Dear Castiglione,

fair point, please accept my sincere apologies. Now train your German, here is Ms Sarah Lambert from Venterol/France: http://www.rvrtee.ch/shop/honig__konfit ... __provence. "Les deux abricots à la Vanille" will take you to heaven. Ms Lambert is using fresh apricots, and is adding half dried apricots from the same quality the second day.

Other excellent sources are Demel and Staud's in Vienna. They do a great jam with Marillen (Austrian term for apricots) from the Wachau region.

I hope this helps. I will check the Wolseley!

cheers, David

[castiglione]

Thank you for all the tips. In due order. Demel is my list of hauts lieux and it used to my a favourite waterhole during my Vienna days. Never tried its apricot marmalade, just its mille feuilles. Sublime! As to Ms. Lambert I was instructed to order and to wait for instructions, which I am doing. I wrote in English they replied in Spanish. Big surprise they are based in Switzerland. I thought they were in Southern France. As to Staud´s I wrote and I am still waiting. BTW I think Demel deserves a posting of its own, the place is number one and outpaces any other confectionery I know, including Paris and London.
My bet for "ablehnen" would have been "to take off". Now you see why I read the Magic Mountain in English. And Mr. Mann´s shoes are something!

[davidhuh]

As to Ms. Lambert I was instructed to order and to wait for instructions, which I am doing. I wrote in English they replied in Spanish. Big surprise they are based in Switzerland. I thought they were in Southern France.

Dear Castiglione,

Ms. Lambert is based in the Provence, South of France. Her marvelous product is distributed in Switzerland by the merchant I mentioned. I don't know if Ms. Lambert is selling through anybody else.

BTW I think Demel deserves a posting of its own, the place is number one and outpaces any other confectionery I know, including Paris and London.

Looking forward to it! For the LL, we should perhaps also cover the best cloth shop on the European continent then (Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe).

My bet for "ablehnen" would have been "to take off". Now you see why I read the Magic Mountain in English. And Mr. Mann´s shoes are something!

Abnehmen is to take off, ablehnen = to refuse

Cheers, david

[alden]

Castiglione,

Very entertaining post.

I am a fan of apricot preserves as well. So much so that I make my own. With seven apricots trees to choose from I allow the fruit to ripen fully on the tree. Then I make my jam with fructose (200 gms per kilo of fruit.) The result is astonishingly good. The problem I have with most preserves is the inordinate amount of sugar used (as much as 1 kg of sugar for 1 kg of fruit.)

Demel is very good but for my taste they use too mch sugar. The best pastries in Europe are made in Sicily, notably in Palermo but throughout the island. Maybe it is the Arabic influence but they use little sugar and avoid the cloying, tooth deadening effects of most pastry.

Cheers

[alden]

BTW, if you want to try the best confitures in France, there is one address

http://www.francis-miot.com/confitures- ... URE-c3.htm

And you can order by internet.

Cheers

[castiglione]

Dear Alden and David. What an awesome couple! Well I started to order in all directions; we will see if I get answers when and how. I do not feel up to the task of discussing Demel for all I did there was to have millefeuilles usually on Sunday morning. I can advice, though, not to go to Demel late in the afternoon for they run out of cakes relatively soon. Very close to Demel there is one splendid shopwindow, shoemaker Rudolf Scheer (http://www.scheer.at/) unhappily out of my means. All the best to Alden in his efforts to acidify the world I absolutely agree with you and this is one of the reasons I loved Ms. Ferber apricots. They are not too sweet. Wolseley notwithstanding I think you should do well to drop in at the Connaught and buy on of her jars. My experience with Muslim pastries is rather the opposite than yours, they seem to me deeply on the side of sugar. Anyway, sweet or not sweet it is imperative to join efforts on the good cause: "Apricotist of the world unite!"

[loarbmhs]

Not trying to be too fussy, but it's Claridge's not Claridge. I had my very first stay there, 30 years ago this week (one doesn't forget things like that). I was on a business trip, and had a limo driver to take me to an out-of-town appointment. On my second stay at Claridge's, I ran into the same limo driver. We chatted for a while in front of the hotel, and then he had to excuse himself to greet his client: Baron de Rothschild. I remember looking at him, thinking he was the most elegantly dressed man I'd ever seen. Now years later, in reading the Anderson & Sheppard book, A Style is Born, I learned that the Baron was one of their clients. Guess I had an eye for impeccable style, even as a youngster.

[castiglione]

To loarbams. No you are not too fussy. I am too lazy. My keyboard is not English I sometimes dispense with some marks. As to sightings in hotels, sorry I have no sightings to remember. Well upon second thought Don Ameche at the Miguel Angel in Madrid and Walther Mattau and Ed Harris at the Sutton Place in Toronto. To my apricotist friends. Shipping and handling Ms. Lambert´s marmalades to Spain is almost as expensive as the product itself, no way. Staud seems possible though. I will try the Wachau Morillen. Will let you know. And confirm please that Don Michelle Sicilian apricot marmalade will be soon available at the very best deli shops around the world.

[hectorm]

Dear Castiglione,
since you are living in Spain, have a fondness for marmalades but seem not to have an utterly sweet tooth, may I recommend, for your apricot-off days of course, you try the RAF tomato marmalade from de la Vega de Almeria? I know, I know,... its name -which comes from the tomato variety- might inspire some not so gourmet associations, but this dulce is really exquisite. Only available from October trough April while it lasts, and it doesn't come cheap either. Delicious on a dark brown toast or with a goat cheese torta, for instance.