Mr Fogg's G&Tea: a traditional afternoon tea with a gin twist

Most people in London know about Mr Fogg's.

There's his Residence in Mayfair (a great, quirky cocktail spot) and his Tavern in the West End (a traditional but charming pub), but until recently I didn't know about Mr Fogg's Gin Parlour.

If you head through a secret door in Mr Fogg's Tavern and up the stairs, you'll find yourself in the most wonderful, traditional parlour.

It was like stepping into your grandma's living room and just the most adorable setting.

We were welcomed with goblets of gin (and tonic), which is always a nice way to be greeted, wouldn't you say?

And I took a seat on one of the pretty sofas with my friend Jenny.

As we sipped our G&Ts and admired the incredibly quaint decor, this rather fantastic fella gave us a mini lesson in gin.

Did you know gin was invented by the Dutch? Me neither!

We were guided through a little tasting of the two different gins in front of us.

The first one, in the little shot glass, was an Old Tom style gin, which was apparently popular in 18th Century England. I learned that it's called Old Tom because back in the old days, people revealed where you could find the gin by marking the wall with an image of a tom cat. It was slightly sweet and really rather pleasant.

Gin number two was an English tea style one, AKA the English's attempt to make gin our own. Whilst the idea of earl grey and bergamot infusions sounds nice, I didn't really like it. It was super strong and smelt better than it tasted, unfortunately.

Do you know what did taste amazing though? The gin-tea cocktail we chose.

There was a choice of three, all of which were served from teapots, which I loved, but Jenny and I both decided we wanted the 'Do give this a chai'.

Chai tea and almond butter infused Tanqueray London dry gin with lemon and honey made this taste like actual autumn in a cup. It was amazing.

Like, so so delicious. Like, oh-my-days-I-want-it-right-now delicious.

Also, there was something most thrilling about drinking a cocktail from a fine bone china teacup. I know it's not that unusual in hipster bars these days, but I quite like the fact that the above photo would suggest I'm just innocently sipping tea - BUT NO! Gin o'clock. I bet the Queen does that all the time.

Shortly after, we were served a stunning three tiers of delectable afternoon tea treats.

HELLO!

Our savoury layer consisted of three different types of sandwich: Red Leicester and piccalilli, cucumber and cream cheese, and egg mayo. And there were also pea, red pepper and roasted tomato frittatas, which was a nice change.

The sandwiches were good and chunky, which I liked, and the malted bread was wonderfully soft.

It was then on to scones which were served with classic strawberry jam and clotted cream. They were quite small, but I suppose that was good considering how much food we had.

There were tiny champagne jellies as palate cleansers which were, in my opinion, somewhat random. They weren't sweet, but I guess they were kind of interesting.

Next up, incredibly silky lemon possets complete with edible flowers.

I wasn't expecting to love these as I'm not a huge lemon fan but they were really were delicious.

And on our final tier, we had mini banoffee pies and pavlovas.

Whilst they were both tasty, I felt like there was perhaps a tad too much cream involved. Banoffee pie tho. I'm always down for banoffee.

I hadn't been sure what to expect from the food at Mr Fogg's G&Tea, but I was really pleasantly surprised. It had been delicious.

The whole idea of a gin-tea cocktail with afternoon tea sits very well with me - I think it's a super fun concept and it went down a treat. That said, it did feel a smidge like actual tea was missing from the whole affair.

With the beautiful setting of the gin parlour, that dreamy chai cocktail and those lovely chunky sandwiches, I loved the whole G&Tea experience at Mr Fogg's and would 100% go back.

Jenny and I were guests at Mr Fogg's but all opinions are my own. Find out more about the G&Tea here.
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