I think I can count on one hand the number of high teas I have been to. Likely one for a baby shower at some point, one my first time in Sydney where I learned it was a thing, and perhaps 1-2 others. While I do like sweets, and nibbling on lots of things, somehow high tea hasn't really been a way of life for me.
But in Sydney, I suppose due to the British influence, high tea does exist, at least more than in SF. The hotel I always stay at, The Sheraton Grand, has a venue just for serving high tea, The Gallery.
"Try our indulgent new high tea at The Gallery. Enjoy a selection of sweet and savoury delights, served alongside your choice of tea or champagne. Dine on rose water pavlova, with fresh berries & cream and fairy floss raspberry buttercream macaroon while overlooking the endless views views of Hyde Park."
The "High tea experience" comes as a three tier stand with scones, a quiche, 4 types of mini sandwiches, and a handful of sweets, for $79, plus rose or prosecco for $10, or Champagne (Penfolds) for $20. For special occasions (and previously, all weekends), they do a full buffet.
My visit was mid-week, but for a special occasion, so it featured the full buffet.
 |
| Nigella Speaking. |
The special occasion I was there for was part of Nigella Lawson's book tour, and I was invited as a special guest of the hotel (I am a regular, they know I'm a foodie, and they likely had a few seats to fill). I was thrilled by the opportunity, both for the culinary experience, and to get to meet Nigella and here her speak too.
The event was really intimate, truly a small group of us there, and it felt like, well, having tea with Nigella? She talked about the book, answered Q&A, and mingled with guests. Most guests were there mostly to see her of course, and thus, that meant I had pretty uninterrupted access to the dessert buffet.
 |
| Venue. |
That said, it does have one whole side with light filled windows overlooking the park, the chairs are plush, and it does feel somewhat isolated and posh.
 |
| Place Setting. |
 |
| So. Many. Sweets. |
 |
| Sweets, sweets, sweets. |
When I went back to write this all up, I discovered I had lost most of my notes. I'll still present what I have, but alas, mostly lacking details.
To go with my sweets, I was offered coffee or tea, I went for a decaf long black, since it was afternoon and I didn't want caffeine, and I wanted something bitter to help with all the sweet.
 |
| Decaf Long Black. |
It wasn't great. It tasted a touch stale.
I'd like to pretend that I had just one little plate of goodies, but who are we kidding? I think I had ... 6 plates of sweets, plus a break for savories. I wanted to try it all.
Oh, and, uh, a break for candy and pops. So yes, 6 plates of real desserts, several plates of candy, and a few savories just to be "responsible".
 |
| Plate #1 ... of many. |
 |
| Plate #2: Candy Break! |
Because no one else was going for the jars of candy and pops, someone had to. It made me really wish they had candy bags to fill up to take as parting gifts! Such great lollies.
The sandwiches were similar to the ones we see in the Executive Club Lounge in the evening, although considerably more fresh.
Points for using different breads, and having interesting spreads on them.
The ladies next to me loved the vegetarian sandwich, the capsicum relish really amazed them.
I tried the seafood salad option, with a mix of crab and shrimp, in a creamy sauce. No surprises here right? Of course I'd go for crab, and mayo!
I've had the Sheraton's scones many times before, as they used to be served at Afternoon Tea in the Executive Club Lounge every weekend.
I was never blown away by them, but always enjoyed the Devonshire cream and jams.
I skipped these my first few rounds up at the buffet, since there were just far too many new things to try, but eventually I wanted something a bit less sweet, so I tried a scone.
The clotted cream was standard rich clotted cream, perfect with the scone, and, as always I adore the strawberry jam they have. I'd love to take home a jar of that!
I was excited to see the raspberry scones, my past scones had always been either plain or currant in the lounge. I liked the raspberry more, bits of berry and seeds throughout.
The scone was fine, but not very special. I don't know if this is an Australian style, but they mostly just seemed like fruit dinner rolls, not a crumbly style scone like we have in the US, and not a biscuit style scone as I've seen other places.
It was nice to have something simple though alongside all the elaborate sweets, it helped reset my palette. 1 point for being served warm as well. Probably my 7th pick overall.
If there weren't so many other amazing things, I most certainly would have gone for the crêpes suzette station, with a chef making crêpes to order, with a big bowl of cubes of butter, orange zest, and a bottle on Grand Marnier on the ready.
The same berry jams and clotted cream from the scones, plus Nutella, mango coulis, nuts, and banana chips were also available to top as you pleased.
The egg tarts were served alongside the made to order crepes, kept warm under a heat lamp.
The first table was filled on all sides with mostly cakes (full size or slices), tarts, and mini sweets. There were also jars of chocolate bark, biscotti, and mini cookies.
On this table alone, there were probably 25 different items.
ZOMG.
The second table had more bite sized items, plus macaroons, cake pops, marshmallows, and jars and jars of candy.
I'll break each category into sections to review, but they were not laid out in this format, instead, all were artfully arranged among each other.
How's that for a mouthful? I don't even mean to eat, I mean to say "Pate de fruit Macadamia Wheel"?
I tried this one mostly because I was confused it was. It was fairly boring and odd. And, actually, hard to eat.
There were two cookie layers, basic sables, perhaps macadamia in them? I'm not sure. They were hard and crispy, and you couldn't eat with a fork, thus, you had to pick it up. Which is fine, except them the insides came mushing out.
Inside was a slice of pate de fruit, I believe passionfruit (meh), very, uh, fruity, and a thick vanilla ganache, that was a strange texture and flavor to have alongside the pate de fruit. It had a really heavy mouthfeel.
On top was the best part though, a really light, fluffy, chocolate whipped cream. I really liked the cream.
I'm still not entirely sure where all the macadamia was here. Perhaps in the sable, perhaps in the chocolate cream?
1 point for that excellent cream, making it my 8th pick overall.
These were beautiful! Shimmering!
But I skipped, because 1) eh to tart shells, 2) eh to passionfruit flavor, and 3) I was limiting caffeine. There were just far too many that I wanted to try more than this.'
I skipped the strawberry tarts too, again eh to tart shells. They looked filled with a strawberry cream, and topped with assorted berries.
This was incredible!
A little "peach", perched atop a chocolate disk.
The peach was actually a fluffy light peach mousse, wrapped in peach gelee, with a tiny chocolate "stem".
It was not only adorable, it was also totally delicious. Fruity, light, sweet. I loved the mousse, I loved the really fruity gelee, and it was perfect when popped into your mouth in one big bite.
1 point for adorableness, 1 point for fluffy mousse, 1 point for sweet fruity gelee, 1 point for a great flavor choice ... yeah this was my hands down favorite. I adored it. It seemed to be a crowd favorite as well, all of us remarking on just how delicious it was.
These were another adorable, and tasty enough, item.
This cake was a classic almond cake, topped with custard and baked halves of apricot, studded with pistachios. I skipped it because I just couldn't try *every* thing, and even by round 5, this didn't make it to the top of the list. Perhaps it would have been in round 6?
Savory
The savory lineup was minimal, as I expected. Tea sandwiches, cheese, and a couple hot items. About halfway through I tried a sandwich out of guilt that I wasn't eating protein.
 |
| Roasted Beef, asparagus, sundried tomato with horseradish cream on charcoal bread. Shrimp, crab, rocket with marie rose dressing on rye bread. |
Points for using different breads, and having interesting spreads on them.
 |
| Brie, grilled zucchini, capsicum relish on white bread. Smoked Salmon, cucumbers, cream cheese on charcoal bread. |
 |
| Shrimp, crab, rocket with marie rose dressing on rye bread. |
The sandwich was fine, the bread soft and fresh, much better than the bread we see in the evening canapes lineup that often seems a bit hard and stale. The rocket was fresh and crisp, and added a nice freshness to it.
The filling was good, a bit of shredded crab and chopped up shrimp. Well cooked seafood, not rubbery, not fishy. Not that you could really tell, given the generous dressing, creamy marie rose dressing, that really did just taste like mayo to me.
Overall, this was fine, but a sandwich, and not what I really wanted anyway.
The warm savory offerings were a quiche and sausage rolls.
I never like quiche, so that was an easy skip, and I've had these vegetarian sausage rolls before in the Executive Club Lounge, and found the flavor pretty strange, so that was another easy skip.
When you needed a break from all the sweets, there was a decent line up of cheese and crackers, the same offerings we see every night in the Executive Lounge.
The fruit salad was beautiful, and I wished I could pluck out some fresh passion fruit, but, alas, there were cubes of watermelon, and I'm allergic.
Starting with scones, of course, as this was high tea after all. Two varieties on offer, plain, or raspberry.
 |
| Onion & Bacon Quiche / Vegetarian Sausage Rolls. |
I never like quiche, so that was an easy skip, and I've had these vegetarian sausage rolls before in the Executive Club Lounge, and found the flavor pretty strange, so that was another easy skip.
 |
| Cheese, Crackers, Fruit. |
The fruit salad was beautiful, and I wished I could pluck out some fresh passion fruit, but, alas, there were cubes of watermelon, and I'm allergic.
Warm Sweets
The majority of the offerings are cakes, candies, and the like, but there were also a few warm sweet offerings.
 |
| Scones (Plain or Raspberry), Denonshire Cream, Strawberry Jam, Berry Jam. |
I've had the Sheraton's scones many times before, as they used to be served at Afternoon Tea in the Executive Club Lounge every weekend.
I was never blown away by them, but always enjoyed the Devonshire cream and jams.
I skipped these my first few rounds up at the buffet, since there were just far too many new things to try, but eventually I wanted something a bit less sweet, so I tried a scone.
The clotted cream was standard rich clotted cream, perfect with the scone, and, as always I adore the strawberry jam they have. I'd love to take home a jar of that!
 |
| Raspberry Scone. |
The scone was fine, but not very special. I don't know if this is an Australian style, but they mostly just seemed like fruit dinner rolls, not a crumbly style scone like we have in the US, and not a biscuit style scone as I've seen other places.
It was nice to have something simple though alongside all the elaborate sweets, it helped reset my palette. 1 point for being served warm as well. Probably my 7th pick overall.
 |
| Crêpes Suzette Station. |
The same berry jams and clotted cream from the scones, plus Nutella, mango coulis, nuts, and banana chips were also available to top as you pleased.
 |
| Warm Egg Tarts. |
They were ... ok. I'll give a point for serving warm. The pastry though wasn't very flaky, and the custard a bit eggy, very thick. The slightly burnt top was nice.
Overall, fine I guess, on par with most dim sum places, but, I went to Lisbon and had pastel de nata at Pastéis de Belém, and well, they were life changing. I can't look at another egg tart the same way again.
I'll give these 1 point for being served warm, 1 point for the top, and they were my 5th pick overall.
Sweets Tables
And then the insanity started. Tables and tables of cakes, bite size sweets, and candy.
OMG.
 |
| Table #1. |
On this table alone, there were probably 25 different items.
ZOMG.
 |
| Sweets Table #2. |
Like I said, ZOMG. Why didn't they give us candy bags to fill up to take as parting gifts? #jokingNotJoking.
I'll break each category into sections to review, but they were not laid out in this format, instead, all were artfully arranged among each other.
Bite Sized Sweets, Mini Tarts, Slices
The bite sized items were the least special to me, as we see many of these in the Executive Club Lounge, and I've tried many over the years.
 |
| Pate de fruit Macadamia Wheel. |
I tried this one mostly because I was confused it was. It was fairly boring and odd. And, actually, hard to eat.
There were two cookie layers, basic sables, perhaps macadamia in them? I'm not sure. They were hard and crispy, and you couldn't eat with a fork, thus, you had to pick it up. Which is fine, except them the insides came mushing out.
Inside was a slice of pate de fruit, I believe passionfruit (meh), very, uh, fruity, and a thick vanilla ganache, that was a strange texture and flavor to have alongside the pate de fruit. It had a really heavy mouthfeel.
On top was the best part though, a really light, fluffy, chocolate whipped cream. I really liked the cream.
I'm still not entirely sure where all the macadamia was here. Perhaps in the sable, perhaps in the chocolate cream?
1 point for that excellent cream, making it my 8th pick overall.
 |
| Chocolate Supreme Passion Tart. |
But I skipped, because 1) eh to tart shells, 2) eh to passionfruit flavor, and 3) I was limiting caffeine. There were just far too many that I wanted to try more than this.'
 |
| Strawberry Tart (front) Chocolate Bark / White Chocolate Bark / Chocolate Biscotti / Pistachio Biscotti (back). |
Behind here you can see jars with assorted chocolate barks (dark and white, studded with candied citrus zest), and biscotti (chocolate and pistachio). I recognized these, as they are both served in the Feast Restaurant seafood buffet.
Another beauty that I skipped, a layered matcha cake with edible flowers on top. I've had this before in the lounge, and again, limiting the caffeine.
Finally, a new one for me: a peach!
 |
| Matcha Tea Opera. |
 |
| Peach. |
This was incredible!
A little "peach", perched atop a chocolate disk.
The peach was actually a fluffy light peach mousse, wrapped in peach gelee, with a tiny chocolate "stem".
It was not only adorable, it was also totally delicious. Fruity, light, sweet. I loved the mousse, I loved the really fruity gelee, and it was perfect when popped into your mouth in one big bite.
1 point for adorableness, 1 point for fluffy mousse, 1 point for sweet fruity gelee, 1 point for a great flavor choice ... yeah this was my hands down favorite. I adored it. It seemed to be a crowd favorite as well, all of us remarking on just how delicious it was.
 |
| Bird's Nest Cup Cake. |
The cupcake was a standard moist white cupcake, the frosting a good buttercream piped on in thin lines to look like a nest, and the "eggs" were mango popping boba. Slightly above average cupcake, and lots of bonus points for presentation. I was pretty happy when they appeared in the lounge a few days later too.
This looked much like items I had in the lounge before, so I skipped it. If I had the desire to eat even *more* sweets though, it was on my list of "next ups", but alas, after ... 20? different items, I had to stop. It looked like a really fluffy style.
I lost my notes on this, but I think I tried it ...
For my one chocolate item, I went for the sachertorte, when I heard my neighbor raving about it.
 |
| Guava Cheese Cake. |
 |
| Coconut Berry Cake. |
 |
| Sachertorte. |
This was rich. Very, very rich.
Layers of a thick chocolate ganache and chocolate cake, slivered almonds, and a smoother ganache on top. Decorated with chocolate disks.
So much chocolate. So much dense and rich. I wanted some whipped cream to cut it. It was just ... too much? Maybe I would have felt differently if I wasn't consuming it as part of an epic meal of sweets though.
I liked the crunch from the almonds, and I really liked the chocolate ganache on top. So, 1 point for that top ganache, but otherwise, actually just too rich for me.
Full Size Cakes, Tortes, Tarts
The lounge rarely has full size cakes/tarts/etc, so these were a treat for me. I tried most of them, but sadly, lost my notes.
 |
| Passion Fruit Flan Torte |
 |
| Banana Caramel Entremet. |
 | |
| Banana Caramel Entremet: Side View. |
 |
| Apricot and Almond Cake. |
You can see jars of mini cookies, likely shortbreads, in the back here.
I had a very similar item the night before in the Executive Club Lounge, a mini polenta cake, the exact same shape, exact same format, except, passionfruit.
I skipped this one because I had too many other things to try and it looked like much of a repeat to me, but the passionfruit one was dense, sweet, and a unique texture (which I now know was likely from polenta). These were also beautiful, more edible flowers.
I skipped all of the slices, but they are exactly the items we often have in the Executive Club Lounge in the evening.
I also skipped the macaroons, because I never like them. They had 4 varieties available, the two here, plus two others, all brightly colored.
Candy jars were filled with all sorts of goodies, hard candies, chocolates, jelly beans, maltezers, candied citrus zest, marshmallows, and more. There were 4 kinds of cake pops, all unlabeled, decorated in pastels and covered in sprinkles.
I've had most of these candies in the Executive Club Lounge in the afternoons or evenings, and always love the jelly beans in particular.
There were 4 kinds of cake pops, but I think all were likely the same vanilla base with colored white chocolate shell, and different types of sprinkles on them.
I started with the pink one, and found it pretty unremarkable. Inside was more dense and harder than most cake pops I've had. It wasn't particularly sweet nor buttery either. Almost dry actually. But a dense form of dry. It had no real flavor. Eh. The white chocolate coating was fine, it had a nice snap, but it too was just plain. I liked the crunchy sprinkles on the outside!
The middle pop here was really odd. I have no idea what they called it, as it wasn't labelled. It was like a pate de fruit rolled with a soft fondant, on a stick. It was sweet, fruity, chewy but not too chewy, and actually just kinda good. But an odd one, no question. My 6th pick overall.
 |
| Pistachio Strawberry Cheese Cake. |
 | |
| Pistachio Strawberry Cheese Cake: Inside. |
Puddings, Mousses, Cups.
As you may know, I love puddings of all kinds (hence the label on my blog for them), so I gleefully tried all of these. But again, sadly, lost the notes.
 |
| Champagne Gelee Wild Berry Yolk. |
 |
| Lime Foam and Yogurt Semi Fredo. |
 |
| Creme Brulee. |
 |
| Lemon Polenta Cake. |
I skipped this one because I had too many other things to try and it looked like much of a repeat to me, but the passionfruit one was dense, sweet, and a unique texture (which I now know was likely from polenta). These were also beautiful, more edible flowers.
 |
| Triple Chocolate Brownie / Fig and Nut Slice / Lemon Slice (front) Macaroons / Gelee Pops (Back) |
I also skipped the macaroons, because I never like them. They had 4 varieties available, the two here, plus two others, all brightly colored.
 |
| Candy Jars / Cake Pops. |
I've had most of these candies in the Executive Club Lounge in the afternoons or evenings, and always love the jelly beans in particular.
 |
| Cake Pops & Gelee Pop. |
I started with the pink one, and found it pretty unremarkable. Inside was more dense and harder than most cake pops I've had. It wasn't particularly sweet nor buttery either. Almost dry actually. But a dense form of dry. It had no real flavor. Eh. The white chocolate coating was fine, it had a nice snap, but it too was just plain. I liked the crunchy sprinkles on the outside!
The middle pop here was really odd. I have no idea what they called it, as it wasn't labelled. It was like a pate de fruit rolled with a soft fondant, on a stick. It was sweet, fruity, chewy but not too chewy, and actually just kinda good. But an odd one, no question. My 6th pick overall.
0 comments:
Post a Comment