The 20 Best Afternoon Teas in London (2026)

The Ritz is the one to book if you want the whole performance done properly. The cakes arrive on a trolley and are served at the table, a musical ensemble plays, and the sandwiches, scones and cakes keep coming for the length of your 90-minute sitting. Since 1 June 2026 it has been served in the hotel's restored 18th-century William Kent House rather than the Palm Court, so older photos show a different room.

It's from £95 a head, and a glass of Champagne starts at £26 on top, plus a 12.5% service charge. The catch is the dress code, the only jacket-and-tie rule here: men need a jacket and a tie, and jeans and sportswear aren't allowed for anyone aged 16 or over. The early and mid-afternoon sittings go first, so book the moment your dates are fixed. The 5:30pm and 7:30pm sittings are easier to get, and are really an early dinner.

Claridge's is my pick if you want The Ritz's polish without the tie. There's no dress code, the Art Deco Foyer has a grand piano and jade teacups, and the tea still starts, as it always has, at 2:45pm. It's £95, or £110 with a glass of Billecart-Salmon, plus 15% service.

Getting a table is the hard part. Bookings open 90 days ahead at 7am UK time and there's no waitlist, so a free afternoon in two weeks is unlikely. From 3 November to 3 January only the festive tea is served, from £120 on weekdays and £130 at weekends. The hotel also asks guests not to take photographs, so this isn't the one for your Instagram.

The Savoy has served afternoon tea since 1889 and is now serving it in The Gallery, with a pianist, rather than the old Thames Foyer. It's £90 for the traditional tea, and the vegetarian and plant-based versions are the same price, which makes it the strongest of the classic hotels for a vegan. The £105 High Tea adds a hot fish course.

It serves from noon to 6:45pm, and a separate Twilight Tea runs until 9:30pm, the latest here, which is useful if you're seeing a show on the Strand. Your table is yours for an hour and 45 minutes. There's no simple Champagne add-on: the £160 Prestige tea includes a glass of Laurent-Perrier with lobster and caviar, or a glass alone is £25. Add 15% service.

The Dorchester is the one for a big appetite. The Promenade is a long, flower-filled room on Park Lane with live music every afternoon, the table is yours for two hours, and everything is replenished if you ask. The kitchen bakes about 3,000 scones a week, and there's a full vegan menu.

The tea is £95, or £115 with a glass of Veuve Clicquot, plus 15% service. Bookings open six months ahead, so it's easier to plan around than Claridge's. The only real downside is the location at the Hyde Park end of Park Lane, seven minutes from Hyde Park Corner station, so pair it with a walk in the park rather than an afternoon in the West End.

Fortnum & Mason is where I'd send most first-timers. The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon is on the fourth floor of the Piccadilly store, it has a pianist and table-side tea experts, there's no dress code, and at £84 it's one of the cheaper famous names and the easiest of them to book. It's open until 8:30pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and it has free tables far more often than the hotels.

Two trade-offs. It feels like a very smart department-store salon rather than a grand hotel, and the current menu is a Winnie the Pooh centenary tie-in, which children love and some adults find twee. There's no Champagne tier; add a glass of Fortnum's Blanc de Blancs for £19.50. Service is 12.5%.

The Langham calls its Palm Court the birthplace of afternoon tea, and it has been serving it since 1865. The menu is overseen by Michel Roux, a pianist plays in the afternoons, and there are separate vegan, vegetarian and no-gluten menus rather than swaps. The dress code is smart casual: no sportswear, shorts or flip-flops.

Palm Court doesn't list its menu prices online. The Langham's own gift vouchers sell afternoon tea at £85 and Champagne tea at £100, so expect around that and confirm when you book. It's also hard to get: tables go weeks ahead, and from November the room becomes the festive Blooming Winter Garden. It's a short walk from Oxford Circus, so it works well after shopping on Regent Street.

The Goring is the family-run hotel around the corner from Buckingham Palace, and its tea is the most relaxed of the traditional ones. It's served in The Veranda, a bright conservatory looking onto the hotel's private garden. The current menu has pastries based on Queen Elizabeth II's outfits, and the £85 standard tea includes the Queen's favourite cocktail (or a mocktail).

With a glass of Bollinger it's £90, and the table is yours for two hours. It asks for no sportswear, athletic sneakers, shorts or ripped jeans. The Veranda is lighter and less formal than a grand salon; if you want gilt and chandeliers, book The Ritz. It's three minutes from Victoria, so it's easy to do before or after the palace.

Brown's Hotel is the quiet one. The wood-panelled Drawing Room in Mayfair feels like a private house, a pianist plays, and there's a Rare Tea Company tea library. At £80 it's the lowest standard price of the Mayfair grand hotels, and the plant-based tea is the same £80.

It's £92 with a glass of Laurent-Perrier, there's no dress code, and there are eight sittings from noon to 6:30pm, usually with tables a couple of weeks ahead. The trade-off is less theatre: no trolley, no big room. The pastries change with the seasons, so don't set your heart on a particular cake from the online menu.

sketch is the famous pink one. The Gallery was redesigned by India Mahdavi, the walls carry Yinka Shonibare's art, and people come as much for the room (and the egg-shaped toilet pods) as for the tea. The current autumn tea is £95, and £60 for children up to 15.

Be clear about what you're paying for. As one Google reviewer put it after tea in the Gallery: “If it was just for the food, I would say it's overpriced.” The room and the live music are the reason to go, not the sandwiches. The dress code is “Art Smart”, meaning no beachwear or sportswear. From 12 November to 5 January the festive tea costs £120.

Rosewood London's Art Afternoon Tea is the best of the art-themed teas. The current one is based on Monet: pastries shaped after The Water Lily Pond, Impression, Sunrise and Woman with a Parasol, with savouries like a lobster profiterole and egg mayonnaise topped with caviar. It's served in the Mirror Room of the hotel in Holborn, two minutes from the station.

It's £80, or £108 with a glass of Billecart-Salmon, plus 15% service, and it runs daily until 5:45pm. The trade-off is that the art theme lives mostly in the pastries: the Mirror Room is a handsome hotel lounge rather than a grand salon, and 15% service takes the £80 tea to £92. The dress code is casual, so this is the luxury tea you can walk into straight from the British Museum, 10 minutes away. A festive version at £85 runs over the holidays.

The Berkeley used to be known for Prêt-à-Portea, its fashion-themed tea, but that has ended. It now serves Goûtea by the French pastry chef Cédric Grolet in The Berkeley Café: his trompe-l'oeil sculpted fruits and flowers, plus cookies, served as a French-style goûter rather than a traditional tea.

It's £85, or £102 with a glass of Billecart-Salmon, plus 15% service, with a two-hour seating and good availability. Book it if you love pastry. Skip it if you want scones and a pot of Earl Grey, or if anyone in your party has a dietary need: the kitchen won't adapt it at all.

The Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea at the Sanderson is the themed tea that works for adults as well as children. Everything is based on Alice in Wonderland: the menus are hidden in vintage books, the teapots are decorated with kings and queens, and there are “Grow Me” and “Shrink Me” treats. In good weather you can sit in the hotel's courtyard garden.

It's from £75 a head, from £91 with Champagne, and from £45 for the Little Hatters children's tea. It's served daily from 12:30pm to 7pm, later than most, and there's no dress code. The Sanderson publishes “from” prices only, so check the final figure when you book.

Brigit's Bakery's Afternoon Tea Bus Tour puts the tea on a vintage red Routemaster and drives you past Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, the Royal Albert Hall and Trafalgar Square in about 90 minutes. The Classic tour leaves Victoria Coach Station at 12pm, 2:30pm and 5pm daily.

Prices start at £45 for adults and £37 for children aged 5 to 11, depending on the date and seat, plus a £5.50 booking fee per table. It's great fun for a first visit or a birthday, but know the downsides: you share a table for four, tickets are non-refundable, the bus won't wait if you're late, and there's no toilet on board. Only one bus takes a wheelchair, and it has to be booked by phone or through the website's form, not online.

TĪNG is on Level 35 of the Shard, inside the Shangri-La hotel, four floors above Aqua Shard. The current St-Germain tea is flavoured with elderflower, and the vegan version costs the same as the standard one: £78, or £88 with a glass of Champagne. Add 15% service.

Come for the view: at £78 you're paying for Level 35, not for a better tea than the hotels serve, and TĪNG's own Google rating (4.0 from 1,802 reviews) is lower than any other venue here. There's no gluten-free menu. Ask for a window table when you book; it isn't guaranteed.

Aqua Shard on Level 31 runs a Peter Pan afternoon tea made with Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, which gets £2 from each tea, and served on a pirate-ship stand. It's the better of the two Shard teas for children, who pay £48.

Adults pay £70, or £90 with a glass of Veuve Clicquot, plus 15% service. If the view is the point, pay £95 for the “Window to Neverland” package, which guarantees a window table and includes a glass of Veuve Clicquot; otherwise you may end up away from the glass. There's no gluten-free tea at all.

The Wolseley is the best value in a grand room. It's a high-ceilinged former car showroom on Piccadilly, right next to The Ritz. The classic afternoon tea is £46.50, half the hotel price, and a glass of Pommery takes it to £59.50. If you only want scones and tea, the cream tea is £19.50.

It's also the easiest to get: some tables are always kept for walk-ins. The drawbacks are the noise, since it's a busy all-day café, and the start time, as tea isn't served until 2:30pm on weekdays and 3pm at weekends. Vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free versions need 24 hours' notice.

The Orangery at Kensington Palace is Queen Anne's 1704 orangery in Kensington Gardens, restored and reopened with a terrace facing the palace. The afternoon tea is £66, which includes an optional £1 donation, and the current vegan tea, tied to the palace's Last Princesses of Punjab exhibition, is the same price.

There's no Champagne tier: the Royal Afternoon Tea comes with Pimm's (a gin-based summer fruit cup) for £78 or English sparkling wine for £82, plus 12.5% service. With service it comes to about £74, close to hotel-tea money, but the setting is hard to beat on a sunny afternoon, it serves tea all day from 10am, and it's fully step-free. It's a 10- to 12-minute walk through the park from Queensway.

The Rubens at the Palace faces the Royal Mews of Buckingham Palace, and its Royal Afternoon Tea leans into that, with a signature pastry shaped like a crown. It's from £70, or from £90 with Champagne, and £45 for children. The vegan tea is a permanent menu rather than a swap, and halal and gluten-free are available with 24 hours' notice.

It's the easy choice before or after a palace visit, five minutes from Victoria. Two things to know: the hotel only publishes “from” prices, and you may be seated in the English Grill rather than the Palace Lounge. The dress code is smart casual, with no sportswear, flip-flops or non-tailored shorts.

Peggy Porschen is the pink Belgravia cake shop with the flower-covered front that fills Instagram. The autumn Enchanted Orchard tea is £56 for any of its menus, including vegan and gluten-friendly, which makes it one of the fairest prices here for anyone with a dietary need. Children's teas are £30. Add a glass of Laurent-Perrier for £22 and 12.5% service.

It's a small, busy café, not a tea room, and there's usually a queue of people photographing the front. The table is yours for 90 minutes. Accessibility is poor: two steps at the door (a ramp is available) and no accessible toilet, as all the toilets are downstairs. Book at least 24 hours ahead.

Cutter & Squidge in Soho is the cheapest proper sit-down tea here, at £37.50, and the vegan and wheat-free versions cost the same. It's served upstairs above the bakery on Brewer Street, five minutes from Piccadilly Circus, in 90-minute sittings, with a glass of Prosecco for £6.50.

Keep your expectations in line with the price. It's a small café room, and the immersive Potion Room tea that made it famous has closed. It's also closed for tea on Mondays and Tuesdays and finishes at 2:30pm on Saturdays. But for a good-value tea in the West End with dietary versions at no extra cost, it does the job.