The Wonder of Stories is an immersive experience in Harrods where families can transport themselves in the magical worlds featured in Jeffers’ children’s books. To conclude the experience, Harrods have put on an afternoon tea for families.
The decor is enchanting as you walk down a corridor filled with large illustrations interspersed with Christmas trees and decorations. Plenty of photo opportunities, if you can convince your young Londoner to contain their excitement for long enough and sit still.
The staff are also brilliant (both within the experience and for the afternoon tea), they engage the children and they are very patient (even when our energetic toddlers were running around pretending to serve us shark soup from the illustrations!).
We ordered the children two afternoon teas which consisted of hummus with vegetable crudities, a variety of finger sandwiches (cheese and ham, rainbow sarnies made with carrot, beetroot and spinach and fairy bread which is basically loads of sprinkles on bread). There is also a smoothie with a paper straw that the kids partially drank.
The children’s cakes were delightful and the kids tucked in to the lemon and mascarpone penguin shaped delight as soon as it arrived (after we insisted on them eating some veg and hummus). The chocolate and raspberry moon was also very light and fluffy, a sweet treat without too much sugar. Yum. There is also caramelised popcorn and which child doesn’t like popcorn?
The children’s afternoon tea comes with hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows which the boys also enjoyed. So we were well impressed with the offering here and the sweet little Oliver Jeffer’s inspiration (the moon cake and the penguin).
The adult afternoon tea was a big letdown. For £25 you get four finger sandwiches (salmon, cucumber and cream cheese, egg mayo and turkey) and two scones with a refillable pot of tea. Absolutely no cakes. The Turkey sandwich was dry and other than the salmon, the rest are very forgettable. At the end of my afternoon tea, I was still hungry and filled up on the leftovers from the kids. There is better value elsewhere to be had when it comes to afternoon teas for adults and there was absolutely no Oliver Jeffers theme to the tea.
That being said, we did have a really wonderful time and the illustrations around us made it all magical. We spent a few hours in the space and the boys enjoyed getting down from the table and interacting with the illustrations. If you decide to opt in tot he afternoon tea part of the experience, I would recommend you get the children’s version and treat yourself with an alcoholic drink instead, can never go wrong with champagne and the cocktails sounded pretty good.
Oliver Jeffers afternoon tea is £25 per person and can be booked here.