Cost – £16.50 (Nov 2013)
Background – Waddesdon Manor is a lovely stately home in Buckinghamshire. Each Christmas the inside of the house is decorated following a different theme each year. In 2013 the theme was an Austrian Christmas. Each room was beautifully decorated on this theme with many different Christmas trees and other decorations.
To go with the Christmas event, the Manor Restaurant offers a themed Festive Afternoon Tea. The restaurant is decorated in keeping with the theme. It is a really nice event to get everyone in the Christmas mood.
Contents – 4 open sandwiches (smoked salmon with cream cheese, prawns with lemon mayonnaise, egg and cress, brie and cranberry), 1 small plain scone, a small amount of strawberry jam, a small amount of clotted cream, a small piece of almond and raspberry Linzertorte, a small cream horn and a small piece of Sachertorte. A small individual pot of tea (refillable).
Comments – The afternoon tea was served in parts. The tea was served first, then after some time, the sandwiches arrived, finally the cakes and scone were served together.
The sandwiches were nicely presented on an individual rectangular plate. They were delicious. The sandwiches were small in size but had plenty of topping. It was very pretty.
The scone was small but I managed to slice mine into three layers! It was fresh and tasty.There was nowhere near enough jam and barely enough clotted cream.
The pieces of cake were small but adequate and were all very tasty. The Sachertorte was more like a small piece of chocolate and orange Opera cake but was still very nice.
The tea was made with tea bags. The tea pots arrived a long time before the sandwiches arrived which meant the tea had gone cold by the time the sandwiches arrived. We asked for a refill but this also arrived cold. The second refill thankfully arrived hot.
Service was very slow. We were missed out during the serving of two courses (drinks and sandwiches) and had to chase up the waiters.
| Savoury | 2.0 |
| Scone | 1.0 |
| Jam | 0.5 |
| Cream | 1.0 |
| Cake (variety) | 1.5 |
| Cake (quality) | 1.5 |
| Tea | 0.5 |
| Presentation | 1.5 |
| Service | 1.0 |
| Value | 1.5 |
| Total | 12.0 |
Sarnies Scones and Cakes 