This months afternoon tea with Jen was definitely our favourite and one that we’d been hoping to try for a very long time. You see the Ampersand Hotel like to alternate their afternoon teas switching it up for a different theme every two to three weeks but always coming back to the very popular Science afternoon tea.

Based in South Kensington about a five-minute walk from museum central it’s easy to see where the inspiration comes from. Tea is served in the lovely Drawing Rooms, a light airy room with a vintage feel and the perfect setting for a leisurely afternoon tea date.

Having walked several miles on our latest Shaun in the City hunt we were positively famished and when our platter arrived we were not disappointed! Especially when the waitresses added water to a small dish and dry ice started to bellow smoke towards us.

There was a wide range to teas to choose and I was torn between two. The one that I tried to order actually wasn’t included which was actually a good thing as it made the decision for me.

For savouries there were gougères instead of sandwiches; tiny little savoury choux pastry buns which made a delightful change. Gloucester old spot ham, Forman & Son (how spooky is that after my visit with Google the just the week before?) smoked salmon, dill & cream cheese, coronation chicken and cheese with fruit chutney. All of which were lovely but of course the salmon was my favourite as always!

The scones were a little different from usual as well laced with white chocolate chips rather than the regular sultanas a huge improvement in my opinion, you should know by now of my hatred of sultans, but it didn’t really add that much flavour to them over plain scones.

But what we were really looking forward to was the pastries! The smoke had long since cleared (for safety reasons, the dry ice was removed before we were allowed to touch anything) but it was difficult to decide where to begin.

There was a small cake shaped like a planet.

A beaker of citrus cocktail.

A pistachio macaron complete with cherry sauce pipette.

And a volcano made from chocolate cake and mango mousse complete with chocolate dinosaurs.

Now I’m not going to lie and say these were the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth, they weren’t, but they were delicious and the novelty value definitely adds to the experience. The hotel itself is also exceptionally beautiful and we had a little snoop around on our way to the bathroom before we left. The service could have been a little bit better (we had to ask for a glass of water twice before it arrived) but it was a really enjoyable experience and we’ve likely been spoiled for future outings!