The Caramel Room

I always wanted to go to this place because they do a very unique «Fashion Tea», where they make famous designers’ signature pieces (from the most recent fashion week) into bite sized desserts and serve as an afternoon tea set. This is an exciting idea for someone who’s vaguely aware of fashion like me, however, I wish it tasted as good as it looked.
Other than the taste of the dessert, The Caramel Room is great. Beautiful interior, impeccable furnitures, good lighting. It was a bit hard to get the server’s attention at times, especially near the end but not a huge problem.
Unfortunately, I am far more interested in devouring a nicely made scone than staring at a Moschino purse shaped biscuit (which was overly sweet).
Glad I went but I’d stick with more conventional tea next time.

My mom and I attended afternoon tea at The Caramel Room on Boxing Day. Our server was very nice and efficient. We had the pret-​a-​portea… fashion tea. All of the sweets are based off of the season’s fashion big wigs. I didn’t know that sandwiches were served and it was a nice surprise… however, I am a picky eater and only enjoyed two of the sandwiches offered. The bottom tier of the sweets offered, actually held a selection of savory items. So, if you are into stuff like bbq duck mousse in a tiny pastry shell, this tea would be for you! I however, am not a big fan of different food like that. This is an expensive tea to partake in… 49 pounds per person. However, the experience is one that I am sure to never have again, so I think that it is totally worth it. We were offered seconds on everything edible and on the tea as well. We enjoyed the Berkeley Blend. It was delicious! A young gal that worked there chatted us up and asked us about our Christmas and also offered to take our photo. Before we left, she also brought us a little take away container that looked like a little purse. We each got one and it had two treats inside. It was great! I recommend that you go here. You will have a great time.

The Berkeley is a beautiful hotel with very good service. Our prior tea experiences have been more traditional so we were quite excited for the Fashionista Autumn/​Winter 2013 Prêt-​à-​Portea menu. The tableware, presentation, and desserts are gorgeous. They even have your name on a cute pink high heel shoe cut-​out showing the reserved table and also send you home with purse takeaway boxes with some additional desserts.
Unfortunately, we did not enjoy the food or the desserts. Although the desserts looked appetizing they did not taste very good. In addition, one of the sandwiches… which we believe was cheese was absolutely awful. In my opinion, the Lanesborough or the Goring are much better options for afternoon tea.

I visited The Caramel Room at the Berkeley in London in September 2012 after booking a reservation online and follow-​up phone call to confirm. Everyone was very pleasant and polite during our booking process. I had read online we needed to book wayyy in advance to get a spot but with my luck I was able to secure a reservation 1 week before our trip to London.
The Caramel Room inside the Berkeley has wood paneling and soft gold tones and feels very warm and cozy. The style is a bit more «old school» and classy, but had a nice mix of younger 20-​year olds like us and some older couples and groups enjoying tea and afternoon drinks.
Once we arrived for our afternoon «Pret-​a-​portea» we were seated promptly and with special attention to detail — a little hot pink heel place card had my name printed on it :) The details really counted and made my BFF and I feel so special!
We were seated at a little two person café-​style table with comfortable armchairs, but I did see a sofa-​style seating arrangement and larger tables for groups. Our helpful server (whoops we forgot his name!) inquired about our travels and where we were from, what we were doing in London, etc and was very sweet. He brought out a complimentary «Welcome to London» dessert plate and even offered to take our photos!
The menu had photos and a complete run-​down of what we were going to be eating and the inspirations behind the creations! My BFF and I have an obsession for anything style and fashion so this was the cutest way to do an English tea and also such a wonderful little souvenir.
Once we received our champagne and toasted to a nice afternoon, he explained different varieties of teas and how to have the «correct English style» with cream and a sugar and brought out the most beautiful selection of petit cakes and finger sandwiches on a gorgeous three-​tiered tea tray. We loved the chinese chicken wrap so much he brought us more (even though we were stuffed) and also extra chocolates and cakes that were our favorites! He wrapped all of the extras up in a cute little «shoe» to-​go box for us to take back to our hotel and eat later (which we did, they were so yummy)!
After the long tea we were pleasantly full and happy and decided we would have to do this again next time we were in London! Although the price was steep (about 49 pounds/​person) to us it was worth it — a little slice of quiet and luxurious heaven during the hustle and bustle of our London adventure. On our way out we took pictures in the Lobby because they had the most gorgeous display of fresh flowers and décor, and the staff were kind enough to stop what they were doing and take our picture for us and wish us well on the way out. We stepped out onto the front entrance of the Berkeley and exchanged nice small talk with the valet and doormen and began our walk through Knightsbridge for some excellent shopping and people-​watching.

The best ‘Afternoon Tea’ experience I have ever had, in a truly beautiful environment, with splendid service, and truly creative pastries.
Service was impeccable, the décor of the Caramel Room, within the Berkeley Hotel, is beautiful (as is the Berkeley).
I would have given this a 5-​star, but the price is outlandish. It starts at 39 GBP per person and can go much higher.
Was it worth the visit, DEFINITELY YES!!! Would I go back, Not soon, because of the price, but yes. If in London it is worth doing it, it is truly special and fun.

Pret-​a-​Portea is a lot of fun with adorable desserts in the shape of Fendi bags, Louboutin shoes, and Philip Treacy hats, and massively filling sandwiches. Although they don’t serve scones with tea (a modern twist I suppose), with unlimited refills for sandwiches and pastries you’re really not missing out.
I really enjoyed the egg mayonnaise, smoked salmon, and Asian-​inspired duck roll… but there was a red pepper tapenade sandwich with some cheese filling inside that I found a bit strange. I was frankly kind of stuffed after eating all five!
The pastries are so pretty, and very fun. There’s also a tier of canapés with Asian influences and unique flavour combinations. I found some of the pastries too sweet and dense (caramel filled ones for example) and the raspberry pannacotta was too rich for my taste. Overall, there were a few misses with the desserts.
I’d recommend the tea for the fun and presentation factor because it’s definitely one of the most ‘innovative’ in London. Service is very professional but not particularly warm and the clientele at The Caramel Room tends to be business men or older.
Worth a try though — guaranteed glamorous afternoon!

I loved the hotel and the surroundings. I had tea in the Berkeley Room and it was very imaginitive and creative. Tea and the sandwiches were very tasty but I honestly didn’t enjoy the pastries.

Words cannot describe this totally indulgent experience. For anyone who loves luxury, fashion, tea and sandwiches, or being waited on hand and foot (those are all the same general demographic) this place is so fabulous. The décor of the Berkeley is straight out of my mind if I were to envision a place, the flowers in the lobby are to die for.
The Pret-​a-​Portea is a service the Carmel Room offers annually and the pastries are all based around the current fashions on the runway of that season. Their menus and to go boxes are so adorably whimsical, I have saved all of them, and the food is just so fabulous I think about it almost daily.
–Sandwiches are never dry, and just filling enough.
–The tea is fabulous, the orange blossom, mint chocolate truffle, and berries and something are awesome.
–The pastries are picture worthy and they replenish upon request at no charge. They are just unbelieveably artistic and wonderful.
In dollars this tea for 2 will run close to $ 200.00, but if I had $ 200 left to my name I would gladly spend it here, with my Mother of course (shes my London travel partner)

Came here for the Pret-​a-​Portea (
) which was just amazing!
Delicious little sandwiches, pear tea and best of all, cakes & cookies & such based on the spring/​summer collections of top designers like Oscar de la Renta, Balmain, Prada, etc. all served up on Paul Smith china. It was a really cute, fun & delicious gimmick! A great place to take your girlfriends to giggle & gossip.
The service was impeccable and after we’d been offered refills of EVERYthing about three times, we asked for the bill and they brought us cute little take-​away bags of truffles! So good. For everything you get it’s worth the 35 quid.

I want to just quote from the hotel to describe what this place is like… if you do read it, I’ll tell you all that mentioned is true.
Comfortable, decent service, oh and yessssssssss veryyyyyyy pretty.
but please don’t make me eat it again.
The food is simply not made for eating, looks-​wise and taste-​wise.

I came here with a friend when I was staying at the Berkeley… for some reason we couldn’t go to the Blue Bar — it seems like it was closed… and so the Caramel Room was our only option.
There was a couple finishing up their drinks when we first sat down, but otherwise the place was *empty.* A smartly dressed waiter came and handed us some menus, but warned us that they would be closing in about a half hour. We ordered a couple of cocktails and some little bites to go with. It took *forever* to get either one of these things — which was a little disconcerting since we knew they were closing so soon.
The décor is dark and sleek, but not inviting enough that I would come here again if I had other options. When our drinks finally arrived, they were well-​done and nicely garnished. But the main problem was just how empty and desolate the place felt — like we’d found the least happening «posh» bar in all of London and that nobody who knows any better comes here.
Per our fear that we wouldn’t be able to knock back our drinks quickly enough to beat closing time… they were ready to shut their doors and our waiter kindly asked us to vacate the bar. When we pointed to our practically untouched drink, he pointed us to the lobby. We ended up finishing up our drinks on some chairs in the main lobby, which was severely awkward and rather odd — especially consider the caliber of this hotel. For a late drink, not at all recommended.