Afternoon Tea at the Four Seasons - Old City

Between being pregnant and not wanting to even talk about food and looking after a demanding tiny person, it has been rather a long time since I posted on our blog, but afternoon tea seemed like reason enough to start writing again! It is the Gurban Bayram holiday here in Baku and what better way to start our week off than by having a girly afternoon with high tea at the Four Seasons. 

We had booked a table and pre-ordered our high tea - the only thing we needed to choose was the tea that we would drink with our meal. We opted for fresh mint tea from a rather extensive tea menu. It was a rather pleasant surprise when three tiers of plates were delivered to our table. The menu was not the same as the one online and I was rather disappointed not to have a macaroon to try, but all the same I was looking forward to trying the selection in front of me. 

First up were the sandwiches. The tomato and pesto melba toast was delicious, the jelly-like tomato was sweet and perfectly balanced with the tangy pesto hidden in the fresh cherry tomato. Next up was the salmon blini which was tasty. 

The actual sandwiches were disappointing. They had obviously been made a long time before they arrived at our table, the bread was stale and the edges were hard. The egg mayonnaise sandwich was nothing special and the other one, well I am not sure what the filling was, but none of us finished it. 

Onto the cake course - cakes and a scone wrapped up and still warm (only just!). I am not a huge fan of walnuts but the cake was moist and spicy and a perfect size for an afternoon tea plate. The madeleine was a little dry for some of my dining buddies, but it reminded me of the ones I grew up with in Belgium so another tick from me. The lemon cake was disappointing. I make lemon sponge regularly and although this cake smelt of lemon, it needed rather a lot of lemon curd spread on to it to make it actually have a lemony zing. Last up was the scone - the benchmark for any high tea in my opinion. I was not hugely impressed. For one thing, it was too big and it has scarcely any raisins. I prefer my scones to be raisinless but if you are going to have raisins in the scone, it would be nice to have more than two! I like to have my scones with butter, strawberry jam and clotted cream and was especially looking forward to the clotted cream as it is not something you find here in Baku. Again this was a disappointment. There was cream and yes it was sweet, but it was not clotted cream and there was no butter in sight. The other condiments did not make up for their absence. The lemon curd was nice but left a floury taste in your mouth and the orange marmelade was not something I would try again. 

Last up was the pastry layer. Four small pastries to finish off our afternoon tea. The only one worth writing about was the chocolate mousse cake, a delicious creamy chocolate mousse with a hidden fruity layer inside on a biscuit base - delicious. The chocolate eclair purse was a big miss for all of us and we wondered if they had perhaps mixed up the salt and the sugar in the choux pastry. 

So would I go back to the Four Season for afternoon tea? At the moment I am still undecided. The service was fantastic - somewhat a rarity here in Baku and the whole experience was a fun afternoon treat. However, I am not entirely convinced that we couldn't have done better at home. 

High Tea - 29 AZN/person

Four Seasons Hotel Baku 
1 Neftchilar Avenue AZ1095 Baku