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Rosewood Hotel London + Retro Art Afternoon Tea

Up On Reflection

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Courtyard © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

We’re leisurely making our way round the courtyard of Rosewood Hotel in Holborn, a mere canapé’s throw from Sir John Soane Museum. Our first visit was for dinner in Holborn Dining Room. Second visit, Champagne in Scarfes Bar. Our third visit is for afternoon tea in Mirror Room. These are the last photos you’ll ever see of the Retro Art Afternoon Tea. Fortunately, Rosewood London hasn’t gone the way of Bonhams or Typing Room Restaurants – history. Instead, this fifth edition afternoon tea is being superseded by the Van Gogh Afternoon Tea to coincide with an exhibition in Tate Britain.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Hallway © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Retro Art Afternoon Tea is just what the doctor ordered after our inaugural Irish Georgian Society London St Patrick’s Party lecture A Very Grand Tour held at The Medical Society of London, off Harley Street. The lecture might have stretched to 100 slides on 16 buildings in 40 minutes but prepping over dinner in Indian Accent, Albemarle Street’s part subterranean wholly Subcontinental haute cuisine restaurant, eased the intellectual burden. Even an eight hour Very Grand Detour lunch the day before in Hix Soho didn’t detract from a performance as polished as our reflections in Rosewood’s Mirror Room.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Bathroom © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Flower Arrangement © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Sandwiches © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Retro Sweets © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

An enigmatic vitrine, shortly to become an evolving diorama of dainty delights, is placed on our table. Pescatarian savouries upfront include salmon vol au vents with cream cheese and keta caviar, egg and watercress sandwiches, and the cucumber and cheese variety. In true Duchess of Bedford tradition, plain and raisin scones follow, accompanied by Corniche Cornish cream, lemon curd, and strawberry and elderflower jam. Queen Victoria Darjeeling blend is a 19th century interrupter. That’s before the afternoon tea leaps another century forwards, starting with retro sweets of Ferrero Rocher | Jaffa Cake | lemon flying saucer | rhubarb and custard. Finally, the vitrine is filled with a very 20th century interruption, a diorama of edible vintage sculptures.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Malika Favre Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

  • Malika Favre inspired pastry: lime and pineapple mousse, raspberry crémeux and sponge, raspberry glaze and chocolate. Malika is a French illustrator and graphic artist based in London. Her bold minimalist style bridges the gap between Pop Art and Op Art.
  • Andy Warhol inspired pastry: Morello cherry jelly, chocolate mousse, vanilla brûlée, flourless chocolate sponge, cherry ganache. Campbell’s Soup is one of Andy Warhol’s most celebrated works of art. Produced in 1962, it’s composed of 32 canvases each representing a can of Campbell’s Soup.
  • Retro Wall Art inspired pastry: vanilla tart case, almond crunchy praline, salted caramel mousse, chocolate crémeux, caramel glaze, chocolate popping candy. Wall Art took on a new meaning in Seventies and Eighties, embracing geometrics and flowers in bright colours.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Andy Warhol Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“As a Pastry Chef, I’m always curious and draw inspiration from things that surround me. London is a vibrant city with an incredibly energetic art scene. Rosewood London’s quirky interiors reflect the British capital’s history, culture and sensibilities,” explains Executive Pastry Chef Mark Perkins. “The interiors feature works of some of the world’s most renowned artists, with contemporary pieces complemented by more traditional art. My latest creations are inspired by retro art from the Sixties to the Eighties.” Next time, we’ll complete our Rosewood London courtyard journey with a leisurely visit to Sense Spa.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Retro Wall Inspired Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Luxury People Town Houses

Lady Colefax + Belgrave Square London

 Social Twirl

Belgrave Square © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

More epicurean shenanigans. It’s barely midday in London – but it’s almost midnight in Shanghai. Cakewalk-o’clock. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, so we’re off to join fellow sophisticates for a G+T at the O+C. And maybe prawn starter, swordfish main and cold pudding from the trolley. Pall Mall is the new Vauxhall when it comes to clubbing, dress code not Bar Code (yesteryear’s utopia a distant dystopia), house white instead of house music, the dance floor now a marble floor. Eagle eyed viewers will have noticed Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack’s son The Travellers Club, a few mahogany doors down from the O+C, was the star of The Riot Club. Non sequitur alert perhaps, but George Orwell is forever spot on: “A duke is a duke, even in exile.” Another epiphanic afternoon imbued with meaning, as passionate as Conor Harrington’s Dance With the Devil, as poignant as Douglas Gordon’s BBW, as enigmatic as Miaz Brothers’ Master #6, as serene as Vespers at Brompton Oratory, as choreographed as The Bling Ring.

The day ain’t over yet. Like social moths fluttering below a dusty light, we’re off to Belgrave Square as guests of the Italian Embassy. To quote Lady Colefax, “We’ve of course slipped back into the ballet, opera, dining whirl which is very pleasant.” Seven-o-clock shadow. The Italians aren’t the only overseas residents to occupy Cubitt’s hallowed 1820s quadrilateral, a paean to pillared neoclassicism. International neighbours include Alderney bankers (Barclay bros), oligarchs (Oleg Deripaska), Qatari royals (Sheikh Jassim) and Dubai head honchos (Sheikh Mohammed). Having the coffers to cough up £60 million over a coffee (cold milk, coloured sugar crystals thanks) on a coffered terraced house is their one thing in common. Quick! Time to absquatulate. Dring dring, dring dring. What would Jacqueline Duncan think? Mrs Duncan to you. “I’m interested in taste,” says the founder of Inchbald. “My school is about philosophy.” At day’s end, before we close the wooden shutters on our stream of consciousness, we reflect on the ostensible realism and symbolist deployment of our structural patchwork. Thank goodness there’s only one shade of Grey Gardens. We twirl.