When you think of afternoon tea, you think of teeny tiny china cups with even teeny tinier pink and blue flowers all over them. You think of miniature golden scones seeming increasingly appetising as they neighbour with anaemic cucumber finger sandwiches. Oh and they’d all be placed strategically on a tier of Alice in Wonderland crockery, polished to perfection, prim and proper as can be. I’m right aren’t I? Well you can scrap all of the above because the Malmaison Liverpool has brought tradition bang up to date with a modern take on a quintessentially British classic.
I know this because Malmaison kindly invited Liverpool Noise to check out their afternoon tea offering and I jumped at the chance to be guinea pig on our behalf. I decided to take my Pops as my plus one this time and before I get to the good bit (the edibles), let me just vouch for the fact that this would be great Christmas gift. So if you’re sick of buying your loved ones the same old Santa Claus socks and novelty ‘Merry Elfin Christmas’ mug then get this bad boy booked in and treat them to something a little different this year.
Right, I’ll stop waffling and get down to making sure you leave this site with raging food envy and a growling stomach now. Okay so first things first, we were sat down at a window seat in the beautiful brasserie with its luxe industrial decor. Then we were offered a drink to sip on while we took our pick from Classic Cream Tea (£10pp), Afternoon Tea (£17.50pp), Cocktail Afternoon Tea (£25pp) or Champagne Afternoon Tea (£25pp). It was a rainy Saturday afternoon so we couldn’t exactly refuse the champers concoction now could we? Decision done.
After a reasonably short wait and plenty of ‘can we get you anymore drinks’ later, our afternoon tea arrived at the table and I’m pretty my eyeballs turned into love hearts right there and then. Looking like something Willy Wonka would be proud of, our selection of sweet and tasty morsels were displayed in a vibrant arrangement on a stylish slate stand and boy, was it a sight for hungry tummies.
Whether you go for the Champagne version or the Cocktail version, both come complete with the following: mini scones with jam and cream, smoked salmon and creme fraiche wraps, chipotle chicken and avocado wraps, mini burgers, strawberry and vanilla pavlovas, salted chocolate brownies (GF), bite size lemon and polenta cakes (GF), peach and Amaretto cream, plus a frozen summer berry smoothie… I know right!
As you can imagine, we tucked in and we tucked in goooooood, only coming for air to sip from our flutes of strawberry-embellished Mumm NV Champagne. Everything on offer was pretty damn #nom but the stars of the show for me had to be the mini burgers and the peach and amaretto cream. De-lish!
I don’t know how the chefs in that kitchen manage to make every single item taste so amazing and look so gorgeously uniform but they most certainly do. We were sharing our afternoon with a hen party of about 30 who were clearly lining their stomachs with some afternoon tea before a night on the tiles and every single slider and super cute smoothie that come through the doors were nothing less than perfect.
So all in all, if you’re looking for a great quality afternoon tea in a cosy, modern surrounding – this is the perfect contender. Probably airing on the more luxurious side when it comes to cost but still absolutely affordable and 100% worth the extra couple o’ quid. In fact, I’m taking a couple of my pals back there already this weekend so if that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does!
Stephanie Whalley
