High tea

Bvlgari: Box Afternoon Tea Set

memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

I wouldn’t know fashion if it slapped me across the face.. But I do know and love my food. On Sunday afternoon I found myself amongst the labels district in Ginza – the likes of Chanel, Coach, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton. This month’s afternoon tea was at Bvlgari. Ha, and you thought they only sold bags (or watches, or whatever it is that they sell)! This particular afternoon tea venue warranted in taking the SLR camera out for the day, so enjoy the glossy HD pics. My first preference for this month’s afternoon was at a hotel (they name of which will remain undisclosed at this point in time), but, alas, they were all booked out when I tried booking about two weeks ago. So back to the spreadsheet to find an alternative venue. I decided on Bvlgari. In addition to their fashion label, they own hotel, resorts and dining establishments around the world. They have a few different restaurants around Tokyo. I got confused and had originally made reservations for afternoon tea at the Bvlgari café in Omotesando. I realised that wasn’t what I wanted. And what I wanted was at Bvlgari il Bar in Ginza, so I asked to change my reservation. The afternoon tea at Bvlgari is at il Bar in Ginza (and not the café in Omotesando – counterintuitive, I know), so that’s where you’ll need to go. So I asked to switch my reservation venue. Now, il Bar does not take reservations, but they kindly let me do so on this occasion because I technically had an existing reservation. Bvlgari service – impressive. And it got better. On the main fashion label road in Ginza just down on the next corner from the Ginza Apple Store, you’ll find Bvlgari on the corner. Turn down the side street and there’s a separate entrance to gain access to the Bvlgari restaurant and Bar. We made our way to level 10 where you’ll find the Bar. Greeting service was excellent. And we were ushered to our (presumably Italian-leather) seats.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

I had been really looking forward to the Afternoon Tea at Bvlgari. I had seen pictures and I was suitably impressed. The drawcard here is the presentation and gourmet food – Italian influenced. My favourite cuisine. The Afternoon Tea here isn’t served on three tiers. It’s served in little boxes. Way cool! Our reservation was for 2pm, so our little posse sat down to check out the menu,. We all got a bit worried because afternoon tea wasn’t on the menu! Oh no, had I mistaken the venue again? Should we have gone to the cafe in Omotesando? Was I at the wrong Bvlgari place? The only thing on the menu was brunch. We asked for the afternoon tea menu and discovered that afternoon tea doesn’t start until 3pm. Ahhh. Bvlgari exceptional service to the rescue again. They allowed us to order it early, and told us it would take about 25 minutes to prepare for the four of us. No problem at all. An opportune moment to order cocktails whilst we wait. Make that a Cosmopolitan.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

Group photo with fellow gastronomads. (I would be the rather tanned-looking gal)

From Bvlgari

Not long after our cocktails were brought out, our Afternoon Tea boxes arrived. Wow. Speedy service. And the Afternoon Tea boxes were amazing! Ingenius. So clever and creative. And the food was divine. Gotta love the Italians for their love of food.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

The first box was the savoury appetizers.

From Bvlgari

Delectable morsels of food. Totally sapid (my new word for the day).

From Bvlgari

Mini capsicum stuffed with a risotto, cheese wrapped in smoked salmon, a zucchini and Italian meat sandwich, pancetta and a mini hamburger was a great way to ease into the afternoon.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

This mini hamburger was so tasty from such a tiny little thing. Anything miniature is cool. A fleck of gold to touch. It ain’t Italian without some bling!

From Bvlgari

The second box was like our own little bread box! With a scone, croissant, quiche and a biscotti.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

Desserts – another delightful treasure chest of sweets.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

There was the tiramisu macron…

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

Because it was difficult to take photos of the food inside the boxes, you’ll notice that I was balancing the food on the edge of the boxes. (Yep, unleashing the inner food stylist in me.) In the beautiful egg-shaped shot glass was a passionfruit and banana cream pannacotta with white chocolate on top. So smoothly delicious. And the remaining square was for the condiments. Cream and jam for the scone and croissant. A jam trolley was brought out to us, and we were able to choose our jams from a selection. – honey, apricot jam, strawberry jam, or chocolate. We were then handed a small bowl of our selected jam to complete the set.

From Bvlgari

Each of the four squares (boxes) make up one big square. Such playful presentation. Oh, and the boxes were stackable.

From Bvlgari

It made for one very crowded table.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

The food was amazing. Uber delicious. Beautifully portioned and presented. Belissimo. There is a nice selection of teas and coffees to choose from. I was suitably impressed by the selection – the usual favourites made their appearance (Afternoon tea blend, Assam, Darjeeling, herbal teas) along with some unusual blends too. Or coffee/hot chocolate if you prefer. I chose the Imperial Orange Pekoe Tea (which is a type of Ceylon UVA blend, I think).

From Bvlgari

No room on the table for our teapots so they had them lined up on a counter. The teapots offered quite the generous serving, which they will top up with hot water refills. (No tea sampling, but that was fine by me.) Tea supplier if you’re interested was Qi Botanical (Canada).

From Bvlgari

Oversized tea strainer…loved it.

From Bvlgari

The one flaw, the only flaw that caught my discerning eye was the packet sugar. They went to such lengths in quality everywhere else but the sugar must have been overlooked. They plonked down a container of packet sugar. You’d think they’d use sugar cubes or sugar granules. I don’t take sugar with my tea but still this was a small detail which stood out (in my eyes) amongst the decadence of everything else. (There’s a photo in the slideshow below). Can’t forget the obligatory photo of the scone with jam and cream.

From Bvlgari

The thing I saved for last was the Bvlgari Bvlgari signature chocolate token. Made with shochu and matsutake (a famous Japanese mushroom…I guess kinda like a truffle perhaps). It was super rich. I struggled to get through it. This single chocolate alone sells for about 1000yen (around 10buks).

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

The Afternoon Tea Box Set at il Bar (Bvlgari in Ginza) is superbly priced for excellent quality food and impressive service at 3600yen. (A champagne option is also available at champagne prices). Cocktails ranged from 1500-2500 yen. Generous serves. A great place for a leisurely decadent afternoon tea. We spent about 4 hours here. Let’s just say that the Bvlgari Box Afternoon Tea Set ticked all my boxes – great location (the heart of Ginza), delicious food (compliments to the chef), wonderful services (super attentive, polite, all English speaking too right down from the email reservation to even taking our orders and explaining the dishes in English – really considerate gesture even though they didn’t need to. There were 2 Japanese amongst us, plus me (Japanese competent)), and exceptional value. They totally deserved the little inadequate thank-you email I sent them. Here are some photos of the atmosphere and decor at il Bar. Even though it’s a Bar, by day it functions more as a cafe-lounge. They do a Brunch Box Set which I am also keen to try. It was crowded pretty much the whole time we were there. I took most of these photos once a lot of people had left. At night, it’s more a bar. They do drinks, cocktails, as well as dinner.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

View over Ginza….

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

Glasses (one of every shape) on the Bar counter. I thought this was cool.

From Bvlgari

They don’t take reservations at il Bar….so good luck in getting a spot. Afternoon tea menu is from 3pm – 6pm. Brunch available during the daytime. On the floor below is the Bvlgari il ristorante. Impressive. Here are some shots looking down into the dining area from the Bar.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

The Bvlgari building in Ginza – shop on street level.

From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari
From Bvlgari

Bvlgari Tokyo restaurants website can be found here. Afternoon Tea is offered at il Bar. You can download the menu sample there. If the il Bar Afternoon Tea Box set is too much, you can try the smaller version at their cafe in Omotesando. It consists of one of the small box squares only rather than the full set. It includes tea and coffee. Don’t get confused between the Ginza and the Omotesando venues. You can read the Bvlgari il Bar reviews on Tabelog as well (Japanese). Bvlgari il Bar in Ginza is in the heart of Ginza. Closest station exit is Ginza subway line, Ginza station – exit 12. It’s right next door to the Matsuya department store, opposite Chanel. From il Bar, we could see across into the Chanel restaurant. Who knew that all these high fashion labels did food as well. That restaurant looked fancy too. My tagline for this afternoon tea would be: “Bvlgari Afternoon Tea: Food over Fashion.” Really, I must stop outdoing myself on finding outstanding places to do afternoon tea in Tokyo. Enjoy the complete photo slideshow.

(Marunouchi) Four Seasons in one day: Best afternoon tea in Tokyo

memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

I died and went to high tea heaven! On Earth, they call it the Four Seasons. I’ve done afternoon tea before at the Four Seasons in Cairo, Egypt. Was a totally different experience to the one I just experienced in Tokyo. Wouldn’t it be great to try afternoon tea all around the world at the Four Seasons hotel! There are two Four Seasons Hotel in Tokyo. One at Marunouchi (Tokyo station) and another at Chinzan-so. I’ve been wanting to do a man-ly afternoon tea for a while now, that is, an afternoon tea with some guys, what I like to call “Masculini-Tea”. Typically afternoon tea is viewed as a girly thing to do, but really, it’s something that can be enjoyed by guys too.

I decided to organize a tea event with my team from work. In my little department at work, there are four of us, plus our manager. I am the only female. We had originally planned for our get-together as a little bonenkai last December, but ended up postponing it to a shinnenkai. One of our team members couldn’t make it. In addition to the 4 of us, the EA to the MP came along (just for a pot of tea before heading off early) and a former employee. My work colleagues are awesome for agreeing to do an afternoon tea. I thought there would be resistance, but there were totally up for it, and I dare say, even excited about. I decided on the Four Seasons at Marunouchi for a few reasons. It was close to where we work, so everyone could get there using their teiki and hopefully not get lost getting there, also it was a venue which I thought would be the most appropriate for guys (no florally china, no three-tired platters etc), and we also happened to get a discount of 25% (a special offer to employees at our law firm).

Move over the Peninsula, I think this might be the best place to do afternoon tea in Tokyo. The food here was pretty darn good! So gourmet, so delectable and filling! It was more like an amuse bouche degustation. I was so excited to be there. I had been looking forward to this one for ages. Let me start from the beginning. The afternoon tea takes place at the Ekki Bar and Grill. Reservations highly recommended. The place was pretty much booked out.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

The set on offer was the Winter Afternoon Set. I got mine with the glass of champagne.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Then our platters of food were brought out to us. There was so much food. What I loved about it here, is that they do a very modern take on afternoon tea. Here you won’t find a traditional afternoon tea. There are no sandwiches and no three-tiered platters. Instead there is an assortment of delightful, delicious savoury goodies which are brought out to us on trays and plates. Let me take on you the culinary journey that is afternoon tea at the Four Seasons. Feast your eyes on this:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

There was the mini Wagyu burger (wagyu – need I see more. It did lack a little something though):

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Delicious melted cheese and ham toasted panfried sandwich with truffle oil (yummy):

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

The snow crab croquette which was scrumdidilyumptious. A shame it was so small. :

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Mini salmon tart. So good. Again, it was a shame it was that small.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

The teriyaki chicken wrap (was a little bland):

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

These savoury treats kicked arse over regular cucumber and salmon sandwiches anyday!

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Already starting to get full, there were the sweets to get through. An amazing assortment of sweet treats on offer.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

There was the pistachio macaroon:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

A sweet called the White Dome:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Fruitcake:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

The cassis marshmallow:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Panna cotta:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

And churros (whoever would have thought churros for afternoon tea. Not sure how Victorian royalty would feel about that. But how awesome are churros. Anything deep fried and coated in sugar is a definite winner). There was even a dip for the churros!:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Total bliss:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

I do have to admit though, that the sweets probably looked better than they tasted, but all still very edible and filling. At some point during all this eating and indulgence, they also brought the scones out. These are served separately, and come out warm. There were 2 different types of scones, served clotted cream, and our individual strawberry jam jars. Surprisingly, a lot of afternoon tea venues I’ve been to don’t serve strawberry jam. They serve other jams like raspberry or cherry and I am always disappointed. Strawberry jam is the BEST, so I was in my element here. The strawberry jam had real whole strawberries in it. Everything here was pretty amazing. The ultimate place for afternoon tea.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

It was a struggle to get through this feast. Another huge bonus point here is the very impressive tea selection. Most tea venues will offer about 6-10 different teas. Here there are a whopping 23 teas to choose from, as well as coffees and hot chocolates – all of which you can try as many different beverages as you like, and as much as you like. I went through 3 pots of tea and a hot chocolate. The teas were very standard in taste, but the variety on offer was commendable. I had my regular favourites – Assam and English Breakfast tea.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Also ordered the hot chocolate made with 66% cocoa -perfect because it wasn’t too sweet. Just enough bitterness. The hot chocolate is served with “condiments” which turned out to be a mini platter of marshmallows, chocolate curl balls and cream.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

A pot of tea on its own (without ordering the afternoon tea) will set you back 1500yen which is steep. It is definitely worthwhile to get the afternoon tea set. The teapots hold generous servings of tea – 3 cups per pot. And the pot are tea plungers, which are really cool. No need for the strainer. Check out the very extensive tea and beverage menu here (all nomihoudai). There is a tea to please everyone – black teas, chinese tea, Japanese tea, herbal teas, iced teas, and coffees as well. I do love how they also list who their tea suppliers are:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Ended the afternoon with lemongrass and peppermint tea. I have recently discovered lemongrass tea and I love it. It’s hard to buy in Japan though. The only problem with peppermint tea blends, is that the peppermint is always so overpowering and drowns out all the other flavours. Still, a nice tea to cap off the afternoon, and aid digestion.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Exotic honeys from Hungary and France too, to sweeten the herbal teas or served on scones. (we had to ask what these were):

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

I really liked the detail in the sugar cube arrangement (like a chess board):

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

On the seventh floor of the building, it offers views but not very exciting scenery. It mostly looks over the maze that is Tokyo station and the railtracks below, and nearby office building towers.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

The interior is pleasant enough. Modern, clean. Full of ladies, apart from our table of men. It’s a shame that the afternoon tea takes place in a main dining restaurant rather than a nice lounge with plush comfortable sofas. However the design is simple, contemporary and sophisticated unlike other Four Seasons’ hotels which can be extremely ornate and traditional.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Service here was very good, although you do have to constantly flag them down. Winter afternoon tea menu:

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Price for afternoon tea at Ekki is 3900yen. With champagne it is 4900yen. 10% service charge will be added as well. With a 25% discount though, this made it excellent value. For about 4000yen, I had all that gourmet food, plus a glass of champagne plus as much tea and hot drinks as I liked. Excellent value, even without the discount. Well worth paying for and definitely one of the better afternoon teas available in Tokyo. Another bonus here, is that being the Four Seasons hotel, they change their afternoon menu every season, with some of the treats being a staple all-year round! It looks like I might have to make it a thing to visit in every season. I am pretty sure the mini wagyu burger though is standard all year round though. They also offer limited afternoon tea for special occasions such as Valentines’ Day and Christmas. I checked out their upcoming Valentines afternoon tea – it includes a lot more chocolate and strawberries and even chocolate fondue! Will also have to try the Four Seasons afternoon tea at Chinzan-so. From what I can gather, it is more traditional. Floral teaware, 3-tiered platters. Whilst the Marunouchi hotel has a more modern Western feel, the Chinzan-so is more Japanese and traditional. I’ve heard there’s a garden there too. This place perhaps tops all the other venues in Tokyo for afternoon tea. It definitely wins, in terms of food quality, originality and creativity, value, and extensive tea selection. Will perhaps need to re-visit my ranking sheet and re-assess. For now, it is definitely in the top 5 afternoon tea venues in Tokyo. Seating session is 2.5hours, but I didn’t see people getting ushered out at 5pm on the dot. I found that 2.5 hours was just perfect though, because everything was so satisfying and so filling. My work colleagues were awesome sports for partaking in afternoon tea. It was nice to spend a cold winter’s afternoon together. I think they enjoyed it. After all that food, I was glad I had arrived on an empty stomach and had swum 2km that morning to appreciate it all.

From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea
From Four Seasons, Marunouchi: Afternoon Tea

Four Seasons at Marunouchi afternoon tea at Ekki Bar and Grill. Details at their website.

High Tea at the ANA Intercontinental Hotel, Tokyo

memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

Another Sunday, another high tea in Tokyo. I’ve been going at a rate of one per month. This time we headed to the ANA Intercontinental hotel in Akasaka (accessible from the Nanboku metro line) Spending a few hours in an luxury air-conditioned hotel eating cakes and sweets with a cup of tea is a perfect way to escape the heat and humidity of Tokyo in June. Skye and I each brought a friend to join us for a ladies afternoon tea – spreading the love one cuppa tea at a time. The ANA Intercontinental hotel serves afternoon tea between the hours of 2-5pm in the Atrium Lounge, although you can lounge about for as long as you like. It was surprisingly very busy. There are a choice of two afternoon sets – the bread set or the sweets set. We all decided on the sweets set. As usual, there are an assortment of teas to choose from, with free hot water refills. Most places that offer afternoon tea should give you pot refills. The biggest disappointment with this venue for afternoon tea was the absence of scones!! The height of rudeness. How blasphemous to exclude the humble scone from an afternoon tea. The scones are the best part. Big points lost right there. It was still a lovely set though. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the sandwich. It was just the one sandwich but it was triple-decked so the salmon mixed with the ham wasn’t really to my liking. Much prefer when the sandwich fillings are on separate sandwiches. Oh well. As lovely as it was, it wasn’t a very “traditional” afternoon tea (no scones!). The sets are 2950yen per person (3 tiered platter plus tea) plus tax. If you make an advance reservation for the weekend, you will get 10% off the bill. It cost us 3000yen per person with the discount. The Peninsula Hotel and St Christophers Garden remain my two favourite places to date in Tokyo for high tea. But there are still many more places to review. All the details for afternoon tea at the ANA Intercontinental hotel can be found here