Introduction

The Royal Savoy is a luxury hotel in Lausanne that sits halfway between the station up on the hill and Lake Geneva. The hotel was built in 1909 and for a very long time served as the more or less permanent residence of some of the the rich and famous – for example, Thailand’s late King Bhumipol spent many of his adolescent years at the Royal Savoy. Today, the hotel is a member of the Bürgenstock Collection that is owned and operated by the Qataris.

I’m on my way back from Verbier to Basel, so I figured if I’m changing trains in Lausanne anyway, I might as well make a stop and enjoy an afternoon tea at the Royal Savoy.

The Afternoon Tea

The afternoon tea is served in the lobby bar, facing the lake. Of course, today you cannot see the lake because the area between the hotel at midlevel and the lake down below has been built up. But I’m guessing that back in the day the view must have been quite something.

The service at the Royal Savoy is excellent. What I find a bit unusual is that all the staff at reception and in the lobby bar are all male. Whatever the reason for that may be, it is noticeable that the staff have been well trained. They’re also very friendly.

As usual, I’m having a Earl Grey. The tea is by TWG, which is a Singapore-based company.

The food is served on a three tier étagère and looks very neat and uncluttered. On the bottom tier are two different types of sandwich. The toasted brioche bun is filled with eggs mimosa and decorated with an excellent Dijon mustard. The toasted finger sandwich is with cucumber and cream cheese. The sandwiches are excellent and a good size.

On the middle tier are the baked goods. The scone is lovely, with a subtle hint of cinnamon. Then there’s a crunchy chocolate chip cookie with whole hazelnuts on it that is surprisingly light and exceptionally good. However, the most extraordinary baked item is the little gugelhopf filled with a nutella cream. This one is simply divine and the dough has a pleasant hint of orange blossom.

And that then brings us to the top tier with the pastries. The one that looks like a flower is an apple tart with vanilla cream on a filo pastry base. The round one is a profiterole filled with a hazelnut cream and topped with chocolate. And the third one is basically chocolate with chocolate and chocolate decorated in chocolate.

This is certainly one of the better afternoon teas I’ve had. The ingredients that were used in the preparation of the food are obviously of high quality and the hotel’s pâtissier certainly knows what they’re doing. The food aside, the staff are really great and welcoming.

Once I’m done, I decide to go for a walk along the lake to walk off some of the calories. It’s a gorgeous afternoon and not even that cold. It sems kind of hard to believe that I was wading knee deep though the snow up in Verbier this morning.