{"id":18771,"date":"2011-03-31T10:31:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T08:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=18771"},"modified":"2011-04-01T00:19:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T22:19:24","slug":"restaurant-review-mount-nelson-afternoon-tea-offers-variety-but-poor-execution-and-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/restaurant-review-mount-nelson-afternoon-tea-offers-variety-but-poor-execution-and-expensive\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: Mount Nelson Afternoon Tea offers variety, but poor execution and expensive!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Having written reviews about the Afternoon\/High Teas at Grande Provence<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0 Grande Roche,<\/a><\/span><\/strong> and the One & Only<\/strong><\/a>, I went to the\u00a0Mount Nelson Hotel, which has long been the benchmark for Afternoon Tea in Cape Town,\u00a0on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Tea menu provides the history of the Afternoon Tea, the Duchess of Bedford inviting her friends for ‘discreet conversation and a mid-afternoon pick-me-up of tea and sandwiches’ in the 19th century.\u00a0 Over time her soirees became so popular that\u00a0it became fashionable for high society around the world to host such tea parties.\u00a0 It appears that the Mount Nelson Hotel, which is over hundred years old, has been serving the Afternoon Tea since its opening, changing from a tiered stand to the buffet in 1990, I was told.<\/p>\n

One has to pre-book the Afternoon Tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel, and it is so popular that I could only get a booking for five days later.\u00a0 The lady taking the booking asked if I had any special dietary requirements, which seemed somewhat of a contradiction, given the content of the Afternoon Tea.\u00a0 When I asked her to clarify, she\u00a0wanted to check for gluten-free, diabetic and other requirements.\u00a0 I asked her what is served for the diabetic option, but she could not tell me.\u00a0\u00a0I booked it anyway, out of interest.<\/p>\n

I arrived at about 15h15, and the Afternoon Tea had been going for 45 minutes.\u00a0 I was ticked off the list on arrival, and nothing further was said by the young person managing the Afternoon Tea.\u00a0 The lounge was almost full with Afternoon Tea guests, and\u00a0I was shown three seating options – inside the lounge, in an in-between section, and outside.\u00a0 The seating inside is the nicest, and I had a most comfortable couch and two chairs all to myself.\u00a0 The coffee table was of a good height to allow one to eat at it comfortably.\u00a0 The serviette was a good quality material one, and the cutlery looked heavily used.<\/p>\n

The Afternoon Tea is laid out on a central table in the open lounge, with\u00a0a tall flower arrangement in the centre, and it was clear that most guests had already ‘grabbed’ their share of the treats, leaving most platters untidy looking and less than full.\u00a0 There is no list available of all the options one can choose to eat, and the young manager made a plan to get the Tea menu photocopied, which has\u00a0a general listing of the categories of items one can expect, but this menu is not presented to the Afternoon Tea guests spontaneously, and only if one is ordering tea.\u00a0\u00a0Something else that was odd is that there is no description of what each item is, except for the four cakes presented in the center of the table, each of which had a name made from chocolate.\u00a0\u00a0So, for example, there are\u00a0four different types of sandwiches, but they are not described.\u00a0 Only when the staff from the kitchen replenish the trays, does one get an opportunity to ask them what is inside each of the savoury items, the sweet treats being self evident.\u00a0\u00a0 The young manager said that until about two years, each item of the Afternoon Tea was marked,\u00a0and he did not know why this had changed.\u00a0\u00a0 Strangely, there are only\u00a0side-plates on a trolley alongside the Afternoon Tea table, and there is no indication that the staff will bring a serviette\u00a0to the table one is sitting at.\u00a0 I managed to call a waiter, and ordered a cappuccino, and later a second one, and I was surprised to not have been charged for either, being included in the hefty R165 charge.<\/p>\n

I started at the savoury end of the table, and these items in general seemed very boring in their presentation, in fact it is a general complaint about the Nellie’s Afternoon Tea\u00a0.\u00a0 I felt that the Afternoon Tea was a placement of numerous trays of items on the table,\u00a0without any care to present\u00a0it in an attractive manner, and to ensure that the trays remained filled, and that accompaniment containers were refilled.\u00a0 The Afternoon Tea appears to lack a champion, and the young manager did not appear to check on this at all.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The tongs one must use to lift an item from the tray onto the plate are uncomfortable to hold and use, and some items I picked up fell onto the table as a result, adding to the untidy look of the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The savoury items include smoked lamb focaccia with\u00a0babaganoush; the to-die-for mushroom empanadas, which were cold when I had the first one, and nice and hot when I had the second (they are more-ish!);\u00a0the salmon, cucumber, egg mayonnaise, and rare roast beef finger sandwiches are each made with brown and white bread, terribly unhealthy, but wholewheat bread probably\u00a0would be\u00a0very un-British!;\u00a0a mini chicken burger had barely any chicken on it, and tasted strongly of the relish on it;\u00a0the salmon crepe roulades looked attractive,\u00a0the only\u00a0savoury dish with colour appeal; the courgette fritters would have tasted better warm, but there is no warming facility on the table; a tiny butternut\u00a0sage and pine-nut\u00a0savoury muffin with sage sour cream; spinach croissant quiche; olive crostini; and sundried tomato grissini.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Having tried the savoury items, it was time to check with the young manager about the Diabetec platter that was meant to have been prepared.\u00a0 He kept his cool when I asked him, saying that they had wanted to wait for me to finish my savoury selection, and that my waiter should have told me this\u00a0(there was no one checking on this, however, as it was far too busy in the lounge, and the list that the young manager was working from also did not have this requirement specified).\u00a0\u00a0 Soon a young chef came from the kitchen with a platter, and I asked her to explain what was\u00a0on it: a berry smoothie made with Bulgarian yoghurt; cheese cake; fudge and toffee (!!); cranberry, pistachio, honey and almond balls (!!); chocolate torte (!!);\u00a0and fruit items.\u00a0\u00a0 When\u00a0she\u00a0talked about the fudge and toffee, torte and honey, \u00a0I asked her if she was sure that this was the Diabetec platter.\u00a0 Surprised, she said\u00a0that it was the Gluten-free platter, and then returned from the kitchen with a much less attractive looking Diabetec platter, now consisting of the same berry smoothie; two fruit skewers; cranberry and pistachio balls drizzled\u00a0with honey (!!); dates and dried fruit; three eclairs with whipped cream (when questioning this, I was told that the no sugar had been added to the whipped cream)!!; as well as a massive pear tart in phyllo pastry.\u00a0 I thought that the generous presence of honey and cream, as well as of the phyllo pastry, to be odd on a platter for a diabetic!\u00a0 Surprisingly no teaspoon is available for the smoothie, similar to what I experienced at the One&Only Cape Town\u00a0Afternoon Tea.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The sweet treats include slices of three tea loaves; eight different petit fours; mini \u00e9clairs; scones served plain and with raisins; freshly cut green melon; chocolate and fudge; and accompaniments included whipped as well as pouring cream, lemon curd, coulis, butter, and strawberry jam, which had run out.\u00a0\u00a0The sweet treat slices were set up in rows, and were repeated to make the trays look fuller.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The piano was played in the lounge when I arrived, but mercifully finished soon thereafter.\u00a0 An hour later the piano player went back to tickle to keys.\u00a0 A wide selection of Teas, as well as coffees and hot chocolate, is available.\u00a0 The tea selection is\u00a0“presented in\u00a0collaboration with Nigiro, Cape Town’s celebrated tea specialist and purveyors of some of the world’s finest leaf teas”.\u00a0 One can order Green Tea, eight Black Tea options, Rooibos, and Chamomile tea.\u00a0 There is also White Tea, Oolong Teas, and Fruit Infusion Teas.\u00a0 In addition, there is a selection of four ‘Chinese Artistic Show Teas’ (Blooming Lotus, Princess Flower, Seven Angels and Swimming Marigolds) available, and costs R50 per pot, but\u00a0is excluded from the Afternoon Tea package.\u00a0 I was astounded to see Morning Tea charged at R105, consisting of a beverage only, it would appear, with no savoury or sweet items indicated on the Tea Menu as being served with the tea.<\/p>\n

I was very disappointed with the Mount Nelson Afternoon Tea, feeling it to be a ‘mass feeding frenzy’, as guests tried to get their R165-worth; it is the most expensive of all Afternoon Teas in the Cape; for the five-star status of the hotel, and its leadership in High Teas, the Afternoon Tea is unimaginative, the hotel trying to present as many items as possible, rather than focusing on fewer and better quality ones (Executive Chef Rudi Liebenberg does not get involved in the Afternoon Tea, it being the responsibility of Chef Cecile, I was told); it appeared functional, without style and class that is normally associated with the hotel and with this tea custom; it was poorly managed in terms of the table replenishment, as well as the execution of the special dietary requirement orders – I question\u00a0whether the second platter would\u00a0be suitable for a diabetic, and whether the Hotel understands the requirements of a diabetic; and the buffet style presentation makes the Afternoon Tea feel less special and less celebratory, compared to serving it in a tiered stand.\u00a0 The inclusion of all (unlimited) tea and coffee, even cappuccino, is\u00a0a plus.\u00a0There is a broader selection of savoury treats than at any of the other High Teas that I have tried, but they\u00a0are not exciting.\u00a0The tea menu listing of what is to be expected for the Afternoon Tea exaggerates the offering, a\u00a0 number of the listed items not presented. Last but not least, no one can reasonably eat savoury and sweet treats to the value of R165, even if they are at Mount Nelson Hotel prices!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mount Nelson Afternoon Tea,<\/strong> Mount Nelson Hotel, Upper Orange Street, Cape Town.\u00a0 Tel (021)\u00a0483-1000 www.mountnelson.co.za<\/a> \u00a0Monday – Sunday 14h30 – 17h30.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter: @WhaleCottage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having written reviews about the Afternoon\/High Teas at Grande Provence,\u00a0 Grande Roche, and the One & Only, I went to the\u00a0Mount Nelson Hotel, which has long been the benchmark for Afternoon Tea in Cape Town,\u00a0on Tuesday afternoon. The Tea menu provides the history of the Afternoon Tea, the Duchess of Bedford inviting her friends for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,20,21],"tags":[10142,32366,10795,32378,10793,10791,10792,140,144,9234,10790,1326,10794,1094,3625,1612,32373],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t