I‘m having afternoon tea at the Lord Mayor‘s Lounge of the Shelbourne Hotel, which is now a member of the Marriott Bonvoy group. There is only one sitting for the afternoon tea which starts at 14h30.

Location

The Shelbourne Hotel is on St. Stephen’s Green, which is one of only very few parks around Dublin. The hotel looks rather grand from the outside. The Lord Mayor’s Lounge is situated on the ground floor, overlooking the park on the other side of the road.

The Staff & Service

At 14h30 the usher starts bringing guest to their tables and the harpist starts playing. I can already tell that this is going to be a good one, in the sense that this afternoon tea is quite traditional.

The staff at the Lord Mayor’s Lounge are great and hardworking. I don’t actually poor myself a refill of tea once. Everytime I finish my cup, one of the staff miraculously appears out of nowhere to top it up.

We’re brought to our table, which is elegantly decked out in fine bone china and silver cutlery. Our table is in a great location – it overlooks the whole room, making it the perfect spot for some serious people watching while we dine.

The Afternoon Tea

The food is brought out on a four tier étagère with the scones at the bottom, then the sandwiches, and then two plates with the sweets.

The savouries are lovely. Especially the whipped feta with tomato is very nice, and the lemon with the smoked salmon is refreshing. Oh, okay, who am I fooling here anyway? I confess that when the waitress asks if we’d like more sandwiches, we actually ask her to bring another round. They’re that good. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the savouries…

There are two plain scones and two with cranberries. There’s also a slice of gingerbread, which is what the salted butter is for that is sitting on the table with the whipped cream and the strawberry jam.

On the upper one of the plates with the sweets is the Victoria Sponge Cake and a strawberry macaron with mint. The sponge cake is lovely and light. However, the macaron is way too sweet for me.

On the lower plate is the Black Forest éclaire and the pecan and apple compote tartlet. By this time I’m already quite full (second plate of sandwiches, remember), so I just have the tartlet. I’m not overly fond of cherries anyway.

The afternoon tea is served with an unlimited supply of teas. The selection is extensive and the teas are obviously of very good quality. They have several blends with Assam, which we don’t get much of in Switzerland.

The whole afternoon tea takes two hours to complete. Once we’re done, we decide to take a short digestive walk down Grafton Street, which still has all the Christmas decorations up.

Conclusion

This was definitely one of the better afternoon teas I’ve had in a long time. The service was excellent and very polished and the table was so nicely laid out. And, of course, the food was very good. I don’t visit Dublin that often. But the next time I do, I would seriously consider staying at the Shelbourne, which looks like a nice and well run establishment.