I have always been a fan of Alice in Wonderland and have been wanting to do the Mad Hatter afternoon tea at the Sanderson Hotel for a while now. The thing that put me off was some mixed reviews on Tripadvisor. I know that some of these need taking with a pinch of salt and they certainly did here as it was a fantastic afternoon tea.

From the outside the hotel doesn't look at all special but as you walk in reception you are greeted by funky furniture and a trendy bar.




The afternoon tea is in a garden area and the tables are set beautifully. The menus are contained within old books. An old style jewellery box is full of sugar lumps. We were given some teas to smell before choosing which we would like to have. I opted for the strawberries and cream.







Cakes and sandwiches were bought out together. As there were savoury scones and quiche as part of the platter I thought this worked well, even if there wasn't much room.


The sandwiches all tasted nice and most importantly were soft. (My only gripe when we had afternoon tea at The Ritz was that the finger sandwiches were dry at the edges where they had been made in advance.) My favourite was the curry flavoured bread with egg mayonnaise.

The cake stand was just beautiful. There were meringue "carrots" at the top followed by marshmallow toadstools.


There were cakes, mousse's, scones and best of all a "drink me" bottle which had 3 different flavoured layers.





If you have any room left you can help yourself to flavoured jelly too. If you have cakes left then they will offer to pack them up for you to take home.



We had a lovely time, and whilst children are allowed to go I am pleased we did it without the boys as they wouldn't have appreciated the fantastic flavours. I would certainly recommend this afternoon tea if you are looking for somewhere different to go in London.

On the way out I was worried I may bring the ceiling down with all the cakes I had eaten but all was fine!