Where to have afternoon tea in London during Frieze week, and the art nearby
Few things are more English than afternoon tea, and Frieze week is as good a time as any to book one. It has been part of English life since the 1840s, when the Duchess of Bedford started asking for tea and bread and butter to fill the long gap between lunch and dinner. It moved from a private habit to a social occasion to a national one, and nearly two centuries on it is booked more than ever, with menus now built around the artists and the history of the rooms they are served in. Here are three places to indulge in this pastime, along with the art exhibitions nearby to visit.
Holborn
Rosewood London
Monet Afternoon Tea. Image courtesy of Rosewood London
#FLODown: Rosewood London has a fitting afternoon tea for London's most important week of art. The Mirror Room serves a tea built around a single artist each year, and for 2026, a hundred years after his death, it is Claude Monet. Executive pastry chef Mark Perkins has turned three paintings into three cakes, The Water Lily Pond as pistachio and cherry blossom, Impression, Sunrise as peach melba, and Woman with a Parasol as apricot and rosemary. The savouries and the floral patisserie follow the same palette, scones arrive warm, and the tea list is long enough to be worth asking about. It is served daily in the Mirror Room, a mirrored salon off the hotel's Edwardian courtyard, from midday to 5.45pm. From £68 Monday to Thursday, £78 Friday to Sunday, with champagne pairings above that.
252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN. rosewoodhotels.com. @rosewoodlondon
Art to see: Salman Toor at the Courtauld Gallery, fifteen minutes south through Lincoln's Inn Fields and down Kingsway. It is the painter's first solo show in Europe, nineteen paintings of young South Asian men in bedrooms, bars and airport queues, held in the same rooms as the gallery's Cézannes and Manets. Until 10 January 2027.
Salman Toor (b. 1983), The Bar on East 13th, 2019, Oil on panel, 36 x 48 inches, 91.4 x 121.9 cm. © Salman Toor; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Thomas Dane Gallery.
The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN. courtauld.ac.uk. @courtauld
Oxford Street
Brasserie of Light at Selfridges
Image courtesy of Brasserie of Light
#FLODown: Tea underneath a Damien Hirst, which is a reasonable way to spend an hour in the middle of Frieze week. The crystal-encrusted Pegasus suspended over the room is the reason to sit here instead of anywhere else on Oxford Street, and the Pegasus Afternoon Tea has been built to match it, arriving at the table steaming, a theatrical start to the truffle chicken brioche, an egg and cress croissant, scones with the house jam and clotted cream, and a run of miniature desserts. Served Monday to Saturday 3pm to 5pm and Sunday 3pm to 6pm, £45 per person with a minimum of two guests, and £15 for a glass of champagne. The Duke Street entrance saves you crossing the whole shop floor.
Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, W1A 1AB, Duke Street entrance. brasserie-of-light.co.uk
Art to see: The Wallace Collection, six minutes north through Manchester Square. Winston Churchill: The Painter is on until 29 November, and Rachel Kneebone's Metamorphoses puts nine white porcelain sculptures through the house's gilded interiors, free. Both are better after cake than before it.
'Metamorphoses: Porcelain Sculpture by Rachel Kneebone', Wallace Collection, London. Rachel Kneebone, Bower, 2026. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, about 1.
The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1U 3BN. wallacecollection.org. @wallacemuseum
South Kensington
Coda at the Royal Albert Hall
Fête de Versailles Afternoon Tea at the Royal Albert Hall. Image courtesy of Royal Albert Hall.
#FLODown: Tea has been served at the Royal Albert Hall for more than a century, and Coda carries that on with French cooking by Éric Chavot. The current tea is the Fête de Versailles, the first in a series drawn from the Hall's archive, in this case the 1913 celebrations of French artistry held there. Sandwiches, savouries and pâtisserie follow the gardens of Versailles, with madeleines in place of scones, served with vanilla and elderflower chantilly and raspberry preserve, and fourteen tea blends to choose from. From £68 with unlimited tea, with champagne and cocktail add-ons and a well-handled vegan version. Daily, 12.30pm to 5pm, until 2 November.
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP. royalalberthall.com. @royalalberthall
Art to see: Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A, eight minutes south down Exhibition Road. The first UK exhibition on Elsa Schiaparelli, with more than 200 garments, accessories and artworks, including the Skeleton and Tears dresses she made with Salvador Dalí and pieces by Man Ray, Cocteau and Picasso. Weekdays £28, weekends £30, until 15 November. Rising Voices, contemporary art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific, is in the same building.
Installation view, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art. image credit David Parry. Image courtesy of V&a South Kensington
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