Cakes Taste Better on a Perfect Purple Sofa

There's nothing I enjoy more than sitting about in swish hotels, surrounded by beautiful décor, comfy seats and soaking up the perfect tranquillity.  Before moving to Newcastle I did a little research to find the best hotels in the city and I plan to visit all of them whether it's for dinner, cocktails, (if I'm very lucky) an overnight stay or my personal favourite afternoon tea.

I've made it to 4 afternoon teas in Newcastle so far, and each of them have been absolutely delicious.  I love afternoon teas and living in London for five years I was very spoilt for choice when it came to where to go.   So I'm really happy that Newcastle has so many beautiful teas to pick from (and quite often at half the price)

Last weekend I decided to book an afternoon tea with my friend Kate who was visiting from Leeds.  There's nothing better than sharing afternoon tea with a friend who loves cake just as much as you.  I was struggling to pick between three locations that have been on my list for a while but settled on the Hotel Indigo.  The hotel is a fairly new addition to Newcastle and I had been wanting to try it for a while having seen the photographs of a very comfortable looking lounge and a lovely sounding afternoon tea priced at only £15.95 per person.

I was really happy that having requested our tea in the lounge when I booked the hotel had reserved us a beautiful area with really large comfortable purple sofas.  There was so much room for the two of us we half thought about maybe switching seats every now and again and creating our very own Mad Hatters tea party.

We started our afternoon by browsing the cocktail menu.  I've often fancied the idea of having a cocktail with my afternoon tea and being in such lovely surroundings with a very good friend it seemed the ideal time to indulge.   I picked the orange sherbet and it was one of the tastiest cocktails I've ever had, I really appreciated the good sprinkling of white sherbet on the top.

We ordered ourselves the afternoon tea and it was brought out at lightening speed.  It was beautifully presented with a bottom layer of a plain and fruit scone each with jam and cream, then a tier of sandwiches and quiche which was such a novelty as I've never seen quiche on an afternoon tea before.  The pastry was heavenly, and I was very lucky and got to have two as Kate isn't a fan of quiche.  Obviously the favourite tier always has to be the top tier and we had three delicious mini cakes - a fruit and cream tart, a chocolate mousse tart and victoria sponge with strawberry jam.   This was all washed down with bottomless cups of tea. 

Our only very small criticism was that perhaps the cakes were a little strawberry and cream heavy considering we also had strawberry jam and cream with our scones.  It would have been nice to see a different flavour on the top tier like coffee, lemon, ginger or maybe even some more chocolate.

It was a perfect afternoon, the staff were so attentive and friendly and never rushed us to finish our food, we sat on our gorgeous sofa for a very indulgent 2 and a bit hours and it was the perfect way to spend a Sunday.

As a bit of an afternoon tea professional I would highly recommend the Hotel Indigo for an indulgent treat with a very reasonable price tag.