Recently we went to the Ritz for afternoon tea. Tea at the Ritz is regarded as a culinary experience, something similar to going and eating at a three Michelin star restaurant (and this deserves another blog). It’s a very popular service, sold out two to three months in advance.
I really couldn’t gather what the fuss was, so I started googling and reading up and was really taken by what I found.
Firstly, it’s the Ritz. Built by the famed swiss hotelier Ceasar Ritz in 1906 to resemble stylish Parisian block of flats, it represented style, opulence and grandeur. Ceasar Ritz was a man of perfection with very high standards. In that day and age, he endlessly deliberated on the play of light in the hotel so as to make the guests look healthier and therefore feel happier about themselves. (I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that people didn’t bathe much at that time, once a week from what I know!). All this Parisian opulence would have been foreign to the conservative Victorian Londoners who openly sneered at (but, I have a feeling, secretly longed for) it. For to them Paris represented art, excess, debauchery and all those finer ‘sinful’ things in life which the church would not approve. So when the Ritz opened in London it caused a sensation and a dramatic shift in the hotel industry. It started being regarded as an epitome of hospitality. It was (and still is) always the home to visiting royalty and who’s who of the world. It has long been the standard by which other hotels in Piccadilly are gauged. So that’s the Ritz. After more than 100 years, it still stands tall and proud. There are very few professionally managed organisations in the world which have enjoyed such long and successful lifespan.
Secondly, the British love their tea. Tea on it’s own has a complex and elaborate history but suffices to say it came to England through royalty and it used to be a very sought after drink of the kings and the queens. However, the actual tradition of afternoon tea started much later - ‘Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, grew tired of the sinking feeling which afflicted her every afternoon around about 4 o’clock, in the long dull space of time between meals. In 1840, she plucked up courage and asked for a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cake to be brought to her room. Once she had formed the habit, she found she could not break it, so spread it among her friends instead. As the century progressed, afternoon tea became increasingly elaborate.’ writes Helen Simpson in ‘The Ritz London Book of Afternoon Tea’. And so the tradition continues, through tea houses and the afternoon tea service at posh hotels.
So there we were, two tea non-drinkers, at the Ritz for Tea. It is one thing to read about a place and quite another to then actually experience it. Ritz is striking, in it’s old world grandeur, opulence and impeccable service. It does feel a little ancient, as if a slice of history has been preserved, as if you’ve stepped into another era where the ladies toilet is still called the ‘Powder Room’.
The tea service arrives in two distinct stages – first comes the tea with beautiful china and silverware along with crunchy delicate sandwiches and some elaborate pastries. (Funnily enough i found the pastries rather disappointing, i kept thinking Ceasar Ritz would not have approved). A shelf on the pastry stand is initially kept empty. So while you sip on the tea and start nibbling on the sandwiches, warm scones are brought in with clotted cream and strawberry jam. At this juncture, you forget everything else on the table and attack the scones straight away. It is impossible to resist them. They are soft, light, warm and taste divine with the clotted cream and the jam.. they are to die for. Unfortunately after the scones, you have to give up, suddenly nothing else on the table tastes as good anymore!
I really couldn’t gather what the fuss was, so I started googling and reading up and was really taken by what I found.
Firstly, it’s the Ritz. Built by the famed swiss hotelier Ceasar Ritz in 1906 to resemble stylish Parisian block of flats, it represented style, opulence and grandeur. Ceasar Ritz was a man of perfection with very high standards. In that day and age, he endlessly deliberated on the play of light in the hotel so as to make the guests look healthier and therefore feel happier about themselves. (I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that people didn’t bathe much at that time, once a week from what I know!). All this Parisian opulence would have been foreign to the conservative Victorian Londoners who openly sneered at (but, I have a feeling, secretly longed for) it. For to them Paris represented art, excess, debauchery and all those finer ‘sinful’ things in life which the church would not approve. So when the Ritz opened in London it caused a sensation and a dramatic shift in the hotel industry. It started being regarded as an epitome of hospitality. It was (and still is) always the home to visiting royalty and who’s who of the world. It has long been the standard by which other hotels in Piccadilly are gauged. So that’s the Ritz. After more than 100 years, it still stands tall and proud. There are very few professionally managed organisations in the world which have enjoyed such long and successful lifespan.
Secondly, the British love their tea. Tea on it’s own has a complex and elaborate history but suffices to say it came to England through royalty and it used to be a very sought after drink of the kings and the queens. However, the actual tradition of afternoon tea started much later - ‘Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, grew tired of the sinking feeling which afflicted her every afternoon around about 4 o’clock, in the long dull space of time between meals. In 1840, she plucked up courage and asked for a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cake to be brought to her room. Once she had formed the habit, she found she could not break it, so spread it among her friends instead. As the century progressed, afternoon tea became increasingly elaborate.’ writes Helen Simpson in ‘The Ritz London Book of Afternoon Tea’. And so the tradition continues, through tea houses and the afternoon tea service at posh hotels.
So there we were, two tea non-drinkers, at the Ritz for Tea. It is one thing to read about a place and quite another to then actually experience it. Ritz is striking, in it’s old world grandeur, opulence and impeccable service. It does feel a little ancient, as if a slice of history has been preserved, as if you’ve stepped into another era where the ladies toilet is still called the ‘Powder Room’.The tea service arrives in two distinct stages – first comes the tea with beautiful china and silverware along with crunchy delicate sandwiches and some elaborate pastries. (Funnily enough i found the pastries rather disappointing, i kept thinking Ceasar Ritz would not have approved). A shelf on the pastry stand is initially kept empty. So while you sip on the tea and start nibbling on the sandwiches, warm scones are brought in with clotted cream and strawberry jam. At this juncture, you forget everything else on the table and attack the scones straight away. It is impossible to resist them. They are soft, light, warm and taste divine with the clotted cream and the jam.. they are to die for. Unfortunately after the scones, you have to give up, suddenly nothing else on the table tastes as good anymore!
Somewhere in the middle of a scone, I looked around the Ritz tea room, and saw groups of well dressed people munching and making polite conversation. I felt we were all romancing an idea, the idea of tea at the Ritz. The same tea, sandwiches and probably even the scones would have been none the different in a small café somewhere. It took me a while to understand the saying, ‘to understand the present, you have to understand the past’. Now I do.
