It was my first time visiting the Lace Market Hotel and, to be completely honest, I wasn't overly sure what to expect but I was quite pleasantly surprised. It's surprisingly really modern and trendy inside, despite it's Georgian Townhouse exterior. Emily had rung ahead and booked our afternoon tea appointment (if that's the appropriate terminology) and our table was all ready for us when we arrived, even twenty-five minutes early.
So, for sandwiches, the selection included:
Scones. Where can you go wrong? You can't, really. So we were supposed to have two fruit scones and two plain scones but it ended up that we were given one fruit scone and three plain scones - slightly inconvenient but not much of an issue as I tend to prefer plain scones anyway so Emily had one of each while I went for two of the plain ones - and they were delicious. But the question is, do you put the jam on first or the clotted cream? I put jam on first and then cream on the top - but I tend to be quite light-handed with the jam because I prefer the cream.
For the patisserie section of the afternoon tea, our menu was slightly (very) different to the menu we were supposed to have. The original menu consists of earl grey and lemon butter macaroons (which sound incredible), fresh fruit tarts and pistachio cake, chocolate and cherry ganache. Our menu consisted of only one of these - the pistachio cake, chocolate and cherry ganache. Along with this, we were given sticky toffee cake and some sort of chocolate brownie concoction - I'm not certain what it specifically was as it wasn't on the menu. It was slightly disappointing to not receive the advertised food but the sticky toffee cake was incredible and so was the chocolate brownie cake, despite being very sickly. I actually didn't try the pistachio cake because I was absolutely stuffed - I genuinely might've exploded if I'd put any other food into my stomach and that would not have been a pretty sight.
Obviously, we also had tea as it was an afternoon tea - we did get the option to choose which kind of tea we wanted but, being simple students, we went for basic normal English tea which is always a winner. And, to top the afternoon off, we were given a glass of prosecco each - drinking on a Tuesday afternoon, we really are living life to the fullest!
So, to round up, I suppose, the food was great - even though it wasn't exactly what is advertised on their website and afternoon tea menu, I wouldn't take anything away from them - it was equally as nice as it sounded. The service was lovely - the staff were really helpful and made it a very relaxing experience. The Lace Market Hotel itself is a beautiful setting, in perhaps one of the 'nicer' and calmer areas of the city - it's definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in the area. Obviously, I can't say anything about the hotel itself as I haven't actually stayed there, but the dining is definitely well rated from me.
- English garden cucumber and cracked black pepper cream cheese on ancient grin loaf
- Maple cured ham and English mustard mayonnaise on sundried tomato and basil bloomer
- Scottish smoked salmon and dill infused crème fraiche on rye bread
- Free range Walton white egg mayonnaise and cress on artisan sour dough
My take on the sandwich selection? I thought the selection was good - it's nice to have a variety. With that being said, there were some sandwiches I preferred over others so, personally, I enjoyed the ham and mustard sandwich and the egg mayonnaise and cress sandwich a lot more than I did the others. I don't really like cream cheese anyway so the cucumber and cream cheese was never going to really be a winner for me - although Emily did like that one. Similarly, I love smoked salmon but I wasn't so keen on the crème fraiche part - but it's not like it was horrendous and I couldn't eat it, because that wasn't the case.
Scones. Where can you go wrong? You can't, really. So we were supposed to have two fruit scones and two plain scones but it ended up that we were given one fruit scone and three plain scones - slightly inconvenient but not much of an issue as I tend to prefer plain scones anyway so Emily had one of each while I went for two of the plain ones - and they were delicious. But the question is, do you put the jam on first or the clotted cream? I put jam on first and then cream on the top - but I tend to be quite light-handed with the jam because I prefer the cream.
For the patisserie section of the afternoon tea, our menu was slightly (very) different to the menu we were supposed to have. The original menu consists of earl grey and lemon butter macaroons (which sound incredible), fresh fruit tarts and pistachio cake, chocolate and cherry ganache. Our menu consisted of only one of these - the pistachio cake, chocolate and cherry ganache. Along with this, we were given sticky toffee cake and some sort of chocolate brownie concoction - I'm not certain what it specifically was as it wasn't on the menu. It was slightly disappointing to not receive the advertised food but the sticky toffee cake was incredible and so was the chocolate brownie cake, despite being very sickly. I actually didn't try the pistachio cake because I was absolutely stuffed - I genuinely might've exploded if I'd put any other food into my stomach and that would not have been a pretty sight.
Obviously, we also had tea as it was an afternoon tea - we did get the option to choose which kind of tea we wanted but, being simple students, we went for basic normal English tea which is always a winner. And, to top the afternoon off, we were given a glass of prosecco each - drinking on a Tuesday afternoon, we really are living life to the fullest!
So, to round up, I suppose, the food was great - even though it wasn't exactly what is advertised on their website and afternoon tea menu, I wouldn't take anything away from them - it was equally as nice as it sounded. The service was lovely - the staff were really helpful and made it a very relaxing experience. The Lace Market Hotel itself is a beautiful setting, in perhaps one of the 'nicer' and calmer areas of the city - it's definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in the area. Obviously, I can't say anything about the hotel itself as I haven't actually stayed there, but the dining is definitely well rated from me.
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