Recently one of my favourite things is afternoon tea. You would think that living in London it would be easy to find somewhere to have tea and scones. Living in London it is usually fairly easy to find whatever food I feel like eating, no matter how exotic that food is but it seems that finding somewhere where you can have afternoon tea that doesn't cost upwards of £25 is close to impossible! I was even considering paying the £38 that it costs to have afternoon tea at the ritz but fortunately before I managed to book a table a friend of mine suggested we have afternoon tea at Browns. I agreed, thinking that she meant the hotel and that I would still be paying over £30 for tea. Fortunately the place she had in mind was Browns Restaurant and Bar, not Browns hotel.

It has now become a regular thing for me and my friend to meet on a Saturday for afternoon tea in Browns so I thought it was about time that I wrote a review!

-Service-
If there's one thing that lets Browns down it's the service. The staff have always been very polite and helpful towards me and my friend so I don't have any complaints there but I have found that the service is very slow. We have sat for sometimes up to fifteen minutes before anyone has even taken our drinks order and I find it very diffcult to get the attention of staff so sometimes we are waiting for a long time before we can ask for the bill. This isn't a big problem for us, we go there on a Saturday when we have time to relax and enjoy each others company and we both like to sit for a long time after we've eaten but it can be frustrating when you're hungry and it's taking ages for your food to arrive.
I have also found that you usually do not have the same waitress throughout the meal. Perhaps it's because we spend so long in the restaurants but every time we've been in there we've had one person take our order and deliver our food and another clear the table and give us our bill. To their credit they never try to hurry us out of the restaurant, even when they're very busy but they have in the past told us that our table is only available until a certain time, usually three or four hours later (and not even I can spend four hours having tea).
The first time I had tea there they did make a mistake with our bill, they charged us for our afternoon teas and the meals of the people on the next table. They did take quite a long time to fix the problem and they seemed quite put out that we had brought it to their attention, but this is the only really negative experience I've ever had.

-Atmosphere and Comfort-
The first time I walked into the restaurant I thought it was too busy and too noisy. Being in Covent Garden and so close to the theatres it does tend to get busy on a Saturday but I found that when we were seated it didn't seem so loud. The tables are very close together which I don't like so much because I don't like the idea of other people overhearing my conversations.

I've found the seating to be quite comfortable, although the sofa type seats are a little bit too wide for my comfort so I have to lean forward to eat my food. I like to have good back support when I'm eating out and these chairs don't really provide any support at all. The other chairs that they have though are comfortable and the back support is good.
Tables are a little bit on the small side, so it does feel a little bit cramped when they bring out the tea and the food.

-Food-
I only go to Browns for afternoon tea but I have also ordered an avocado and bacon salad and a home made lemonade.
The salad was quite nice but it wasn't mixed enough for my taste. It was basically a bowl of lettuce with some bacon, avocado and dressing dumped on the top. The bowl was too small for me to mix it myself and the dressing hadn't coated any of the leaves underneath. But there isn't really much that can go wrong with such a simple salad and it was nice enough.
The lemonade is wonderful and I order it everytime I go to Browns. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it is very bitter but a friend of mine ordered it the other day and complained about how bitter it was so I thought I should just warn you all!

As I've said the reason I go in there is for the afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea consists of tea, a scone with jam and clotted cream, two triangles of salmon sandwich, two triangles of cheese and cucumber sandwich and a slice of fruit cake.

This afternoon tea is not particularly big but it is great for an afternoon snack, which I assume is what it's meant to be.
The first time I ordered the afternoon tea they gave it to me in a coffee cup. I didn't like this much because I prefer for tea to be served in a tea pot so that I can control how strong the tea is. Since then it's always been served in a tea pot, although on Saturday they ran out of lids and had to serve it with a saucer on top of the tea pot (which made pouring quite awkward).
They don't seem to have the same tea every time and I never think to ask which tea it is so I can't comment on what tea is the best one but I have found that I do prefer some over others.

The sandwiches are lovely, it's just unfortunate that there aren't more of them. I do wish that they would leave the crusts on the sandwiches (I'm sure they would if I ever remembered to ask) because I love the crusty part of the bread.
The scones are generally very good, although on Saturday my friends scone crumbled so much that she had trouble putting her jam and cream on it.
I don't like fruit cake so I can't comment on the cake.
Overall I really enjoy their afternoon tea. It is the perfect light snack for a Saturday afternoon.

-Everything Else-

Cost: Afternoon tea costs £6.75 per person.

Location: Browns is in Covent Garden and is a short walk from Covent Garden tube station. I would recommend printing off a map if you don't know the area well.

Accessibility: The restaurant does not appear to be accessible to wheelchair users due to the number of steps so if you are a wheelchair user I would recommend ringing the restaurant to find out if there is a alternative entrance that you can use.

For more information please visit: http://www.browns-restaurants.co.uk/menu-coventgar den.php