The Science Afternoon Tea at the Ampersand Hotel in South Kensington is a real treat for young Londoners. Located in this beautiful cultural quarter in London and the Ampersand have taken inspiration from the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum to created a delicious scientific afternoon tea that caters for everyone. There are vegetarian, vegan and gluten free afternoon tea menus as well as the option to have Prosecco or Champagne with your tea.
We went for the traditional adult and children’s versions and despite high expectations were still very much impressed. The best part of the experience is how involved the children are in the whole process. At the Ampersand it’s a learning experience as well as a sugar rush.
The children’s afternoon tea begins with a hot chocolate that the children create themselves (by stirring solid chocolate into hot milk) with the option to add marshmallows and chocolate balls (which they certainly did).
This is followed up by the juice experiment where young Londoners get to see how edible chemicals are mixed together and suddenly fizz into life. They examine it closely observing the colours changing and then do the taste test. The staff at the Amersand were particularly patient with helping two toddlers understand this part of the afternoon tea process.
The main afternoon tea platter is served from a rocket ship cake stand (complete with dry ice to send the rocket to space). Everything was devoured from the cheese straw rockets through to the mini-hot dogs, finger sandwiches and on to the chocolate planet mousse and chocolate cake lollypops. The boys sampled jellies served in petri dishes, bit into chocolate t-rexes and dusted multi coloured sprinkles on everything.
The scones didn’t seem as exciting as the rest of the culinary delights (although the boys enjoyed squirting the lemon curd on there). But despite now being fuelled by glucose, the toddlers were in for an archeological treat as they were served two wooden boxes with Dinosaur shortbread and chocolate hidden beneath cocoa powdered earth. This comes complete with a fossil brush to dust off your own discovery before with a crunch the toddlers munched them all up.
The only part of the experience that was a let down was the service as we got closer to the end of the experience. Perhaps due to covid-19 they have reduced the staff numbers as we had to promp our waiter several times to help transition from one part of the experience to another.
The Science Afternoon tea at the Ampersand Hotel is normally £44.50 per adult and £31.50 per child. Currently there is a 50% off promotion for adults available here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays throughout October.