Brown’s Hotel, Agatha Christie afternoon tea: review

Sandwiches are good – the best is cheddar cheese, beef tomato and gooseberry chutney – and a little different; salt beef, gherkin and mustard comes in a bagel, and the potted smoked salmon and chives in a brown roll. Scones are served with clotted cream, homemade jam and honey (the latter was Miss Marple’s preference), and are all manner of sizes… we liked the rebellion against uniformity, especially seeing as they were baked so well.

The Agatha Christie theme picks up pace with the cakes – there’s a (dry, unfortunately) orange and poppy seed cake that makes an appearance in At Bertram’s Hotel; an excellent strong black coffee tiramisu as a reference to Miss Marple’s love of coffee; and delicate rosemary macarons with sugar clock faces on top – a play on Christie’s The Clocks, in which one of the clues was a travel clock with the name Rosemary printed on it. Quite a clever connection, but some of the links are a little tenuous – especially for diehard Christie fans. Her Nemesis novel becomes a gloriously fudgy ‘death by chocolate Nemesis with milk chantilly’, and there’s also ‘Miss Marple’s apple pie’ – great pastry, but we're unaware of any connection between the lady and the pie.

The tea list is extensive, and our waiter was well acquainted with it. We asked for silver needle, and it was his idea to personalise our brew with a handful of whole rosebuds… a lovely blend, and one that even Hercule Poirot would have approved of.