Victoria K.
Yelp
I desperately wanted to do an afternoon tea experience during our visit to Paris. A Parisian afternoon tea is a bit different than a typical British one, and tends to exist a bit more outside the box. I researched several high end afternoon teas in the city and determined that the offerings at Café Antonia at Hôtel Le Bristol were most suited to our tastes.
What I really like about Le Bristol is that they have many different levels of tea experience depending on your preference, from a simple tea and pastry to a multi-course offering served with Champagne. There's a lot of flexibility.
Our server suggested that mom and I could share a single Classic High Tea since it's plenty of food. We just added an extra pot of tea. Both the teas we selected, the Paris for Her and the Dong Ding, were excellent.
Although we would normally begin with the savory sandwiches and work our way through the other tiers, our server suggested we start with the lemon and hazelnut muffin, and the brioche with vanilla, cinnamon and sugar on top since these two were fresh from the oven and still warm. These are a departure from the typical scone offering in British tea services, but were both delicious and served with clotted cream and a selection of jams.
All the mini sandwiches are served on buttered, toasted, crustless bread. The butter makes all the difference, enhancing the flavor and improving the texture over plain toasted or un-toasted bread. The first is a chicken, hard boiled egg, lettuce, and tomato, which reminded me a bit of a club sandwich without the bacon. It was very tasty but perhaps a tad messy to eat since I made the mistake of removing my skewer before taking a bite. The second sandwich was a take on vitello tonnato, featuring veal, tuna, and Parmesan. I didn't get much of the tuna or the Parmesan, which is good that they were subtle. The veal seemed to be roasted and sliced much like a turkey breast. This sandwich was better than it sounded, and was possibly my favorite sandwich of the three. The final sandwich offering is a vegetarian eggplant, sun-dried tomato, and avocado bound together with thinly spread goat cheese. This was also delicious! There was a nice variation and balance between the three mini sandwich varieties. Even though each triangular bite appeared to be quite small, the meal was pretty filling.
The final round is the tiny pastries. First we have a raspberry, lemon, and tarragon dessert, which was delicious and not too assertive with the tarragon flavor (an herb I generally dislike). The base was some kind of a nicely caramelized cookie. Overall this was more appealing than I originally expected. We also had a strawberry and cream dessert in a tiny meringue cup. It was refreshing, and a nice textural play between the crisp but melt-in-your-mouth meringue and the creamy fruit-studded filling. The chocolate dessert was the most decadent offering on the plate, so I'm glad we saved this for last. It had a chocolate praline base, chocolate mousse filling, and chocolate shingles with cocoa nibs for crunch. The result was bittersweet and rich, a perfect finale to a beautiful meal.
Although the Classic High Tea is a bit pricey for the amount of food served (with the extra pot of tea it was nearly $85 total), it's easily shareable, and the quality and attention to detail in the food is paramount. This was such a fun change from the types of meals we enjoyed throughout the week.
