Palm

I’m fairly sure that years ago when my friend A and her nursing colleagues had finished a long series of night shifts at a hospital in London they would celebrate by going to the Ritz Hotel for their breakfast. I’ve just had a look at the current prices for the Ritz breakfast and gave a slight gasp.

But that was not in the Palm Court restaurant for Afternoon Tea. That is in a different league. This is how it’s described:

This most charming English Afternoon Tea in Mayfair is served in the spectacular surroundings of The Palm Court. The Ritz London is the only hotel in the UK with a certified Tea Master, Giandomenico Scanu, who travels around the world to various tea plantations to source our excellent teas. Why not try our exclusive Ritz Royal Blend Tea? This is only available at The Ritz.

Music to match the occasion
The elegant ambience is complemented by a musical ensemble from our resident pianist – the final ingredient to ensure your Afternoon Tea at The Ritz is, quite simply, unforgettable.

The Ritz London has a dress code in different areas of the hotel as follows: Gentlemen are required to wear a jacket and tie (jeans and sportswear are not permitted for either ladies or gentlemen) for Afternoon Tea in The Palm Court. Kindly note that our Afternoon Tea dress code does not apply to children under 16.

Enjoy the perfect ending to your luxury Afternoon Tea experience, savouring our signature Ritz tableside service, which includes two generous slices of cake from the guéridon trolley. Our skilled Pastry Chefs change the cakes on the menu to perfectly complement the season’s flavours. Whether you crave an indulgent chocolate treat or a refreshing fruity delight, you can choose your favourite cake and enjoy it to the fullest.

Afternoon Tea prices start from £81 for adults and £59 for children.

So what is the Palm Court?

The Ritz's most widely known facility is the Palm Court, an opulently decorated cream-coloured Louis XVI setting. It is decorated with lavish furnishings, including gilded Louis XVI armchairs with oval backs, which the architects had designed based on research into French neo-classical furniture design of the 1760s and 1770s, which were made by Waring and Gillow. The room, with its, ‘panelled mirrors of bevelled glass in gilt bronze frames’ and ‘high coving ornamented with gilded trellis-work’, according to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin ‘epitomizes the elegantly frivolous comfort of Edwardian high life’.

There were originally large windows at either end of the Court, then known as the Winter Garden, and were replaced with twenty panels of mirrors after 1972. The fountain of the court, known as ‘La Source’, is made of Echaillon marble and is extravagantly sculpted. A nymph, gold in colour, is featured in a lair. A wrought-iron and glass roof of the Palm Court contains two gilded wrought-iron lanterns, and the ceiling contains lion skin motifs. The room is done in soft apricot and has remained so since 1906. César Ritz chose the colour to flatter the complexions of women after weeks of experimentation with various hues.

So that’s putting on the Ritz. Not my normal sort of place but just once I’d like to partake of its Palm Court luxury.

And then there is this.

Lincoln Tea Shop

“Bring the Earl Grey Tea Bag,
I want to put it in myself.”
Well, you wouldn’t get that
at the Palm Court Ritz
and definitely not in Preston, Lancs.

So I glanced,
easily distracted
from lines of Magna Carta
I couldn’t understand.

He wasn’t hard to find,
a pompous git in Barbours,
older than his voice,
pointing at a menu,
trying to impress
a woman in a green dress,
and much to my surprise,
succeeding.

Perhaps it’s the place,
a High church and hollow castle,
the eyes looking down
a Roman nose of a road,
its smile silted
behind trinkets of shops,
anxious to please,
knowing it’s better,
proving it
when the waitress
showed me
the workings
of a modern teapot.

First published in Poetic Hours, August 2005.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.
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