The Soho's Secret Tea Room

After a lovely afternoon perusing the fleshy Boucher's at the Wallace collection Agnes and I developed quite an appetite. We resolved to head into depths of Soho to see if we could find ourselves a satisfying afternoon tea.

We were intrigued by Soho's Secret Tea Room above the Coach and Horses on Greek Street and enquired at the bar. We were invited to walk through the kitchen and up a back staircase to the second floor — we were loving it already. Upstairs shabby chic, with an emphasis on the shabby, prevailed in the delightfully cozy tea room filled with tables padded with innumerable layers of vintage table cloths, assorted mirrors on the walls and fresh flowers on the tables.

A variety of patrons sat huddled over mismatched tea pots and mounds of goodies. The atmosphere was made even more pleasant by the record player softly spinning Bing Crosby and other nostalgic crooners. We were very hopeful and immediately relaxed by the pleasant and unpretentious surroundings. Good thing we were relaxed as it took quite a long time for the waitress to make it to our table. When she brought the menu we were delighted to see classic tea time sarnies such as cucumber, egg and cress and smoked salmon with cream cheese. The tea menu consisted of a choice of the 3 above mentioned finger sandwiches, a choice of a fruit or plain scone with clotted cream and home made jam, a choice of cupcake, cake and, of course, tea. My goodness how to choose, all the cakes looked scrummy. We must admit that the tea list was a little disappointing with an emphasis on blends, flavoured teas and Rooibos. We are rather traditionalist when it comes to our teas. We selected Darjeeling and a premium English Breakfast which was supposed to cost a bit extra although they didn't charge us for this.

Our tea, sandwiches and scones did take their time arriving but the atmosphere was so pleasant we were unperturbed. When they did arrive we were impressed with the generosity, six finger sandwiches each and two scones as opposed to the one promised on the menu. Again, the tea was rather disappointing, the Darjeeling lacked its signature complexity and the English Breakfast was nothing special, in fact we had a hard time telling them apart. The sandwiches, however, were very good, slathered with butter, fresh and spongy. The cucumber and egg — curiously sans cress but still delicious — could have used a generous pinch of salt, but the smoked salmon was truly divine. The scones were very good, Agnes thought excellent, but I thought just a wee bit powdery. The fruit scone was especially good with bits of candied orange peel and raisins.

After finishing our sandwiches and three of our four scones the waitress brought our cakes and cupcakes. The vanilla cupcake I chose was fresh and delicious but tooth-achingly sweet, which it seems cupcakes are bound to be. This American craze for cupcakes, which seems to have invaded the British tea table, must end. I vow to walk out if I ever see a whoppie pie on a tea menu. Agnes' coffee cake was perfect — fresh, home made and not too sweet at all.

After all that we were feeling like some rather fleshy Boucher's ourselves so we asked the waitress to wrap up our remaining scone, lemon curd cupcake and chocolate cake to take home. We enjoyed them immensely with a fine Assam Mangalam the next day. The lemon curd cupcake wasn't nearly as sweet as the vanilla cupcake and still tasted very fresh the next day. The chocolate cake was very good as well, not too sweet but it did lack that satisfying richness a truly excellent chocolate cake should have.

All in all it was a lovely afternoon made lovelier by our visit to Soho's Secret Tea Room. We shall surely patronise this establishment again — pleasant, delicious and so reasonably priced. Our two teas and service came to £32.60.

• Soho's Secret Tea Room
  Above The Coach and Horses pub
  29 Greek Street
  London W1D 5DH
• Afternoon tea £14.50 per person (service not included)
• Our rating: 3.5 out of 5