Until I win the lottery, I guess I'll have to find my afternoon teas elsewhere. As a vegan with coeliac disease, finding an afternoon tea that suits has been something of a white whale for me. Luckily, I hit the jackpot when I found out that Terre a Terre in Brighton does a vegan, gluten-free afternoon tea every week from Wednesday to Sunday. If you check out the afternoon tea menu, you can see a vegan, and a gluten free, option, but not a vegan, gluten free option. But when I rang and asked if it was possible to have an afternoon tea that was both, I was assured it was.
The afternoon tea comes with a plate of savouries, and a classic three-tiered stand of sweet treats, pictured below. If you're looking at the cake stand and thinking, 'that look like a lot of food, I don't know if I'd be able to eat all that', know that I thought the same. But it was so good, I finished the lot.
We attacked the middle tier first - the orange and almond polenta cake with clementine sorbet and pomegranate molasses, pink peppered meringue, orange gel, candied orange and caramel almond. Making a good polenta cake I think can be a work of art - getting a flavour that works with the corn and a texture that isn't dense is no mean feat. This was a deft little muffin, and the clementine sorbet cut through the sweet with citrus sharpness. Loved the meringue for a textural foil to the softness of both.
The top tier was I think my favourite, though it was a chocolate hazelnut truffle cake and praline served with a whipped dark chocolate mousse. The cake was rich, dense and dark - the sort of dessert that makes you sit up a little bit straighter in your chair, rearrange your hair, and feel a bit more sophisticated for having eaten it. And if you're in need of more chocolate after that, there's a 'Razza Jazza' chocolate orange truffle for good measure. Like the clementine sorbet in the tier below, the mini Brandy Alexander milkshake was a welcome refreshing note to cut through the richness.
The bottom tier are the scones - the tier on which all afternoon teas stand or fall. I was pleased with these lads - just the right side of heavy, lots of fruit. These come with vegan clotted cream and strawberry jam, in the classic style - proof some classics are classics for a reason!
And the savoury tier? That took all the classic afternoon tea staples and threw them out the window, and then stamped on them for good measure. No sandwiches here - instead there's this glorious assortment:
Along with a heap of homemade seaweed rice crackers that gave a heavenly crunch and umami, the plate came with Jaipur Jonny Brinjal - coconut maize chaat-spiced fritter served on Bengal butter-baked aubergine and hot mango-lime chutney, with coconut yogurt and crunchy chilli-flaked coconut
almond clusters. On the other side, sushi rice with tempura oyster mushrooms. (For those wondering, there's a gluten free fryer!) Who wants sandwiches? Bring me battered oyster mushrooms, meltingly soft aubergine, crisp seaweed every day.
I might not have won the lottery yet, but finding a gluten-free, vegan afternoon tea as good as this felt a bit like it. And with my distinctly non-lottery-winner's budget, for food this tasty, £33 this feels like a bit of a steal.
Terre a Terre
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