Vegan afternoon tea in London: La Suite West totally nails it

Afternoon tea is, I reckon, a perfect a meal as there can be. Afternoon tea is a feast of tiny savoury and sweet treats, washed down with enough tea to float a battleship. If you've got enough time, money and appetite to eat a whole afternoon tea, then you're in a good place. I think the last time I managed to have an afternoon tea, it was 2014 when I went to La Suite West, an all-vegan hotel in west London. It was a glorious meal, so five years later (!), I decided to pay a return visit.

Before I get to singing the praises of the afternoon tea, I'll mention how good the service was. Right, onto the eats!

Like any good afternoon tea, La Suite West's has three tiers of sandwiches, scones and cakes. Unlike most afternoon teas, though, La Suite West's is all vegan, beautifully prepared and thoroughly inventive. Case in point: check out the sandwiches.

There are four different sandwich fillings: the classics cream cheese and eggless mayo, as well as rocket-and-ajvar, an East European vegetable spread that's heavy on the peppers, and coronation jackfruit. Vegan food has gone big on jackfruit, but I've always felt a bit squeamish about it (it looks too much like ligaments for my liking) but it turns out that if you wrap it in a lightly-curried mayonnaise, it is amazing. 

By this point, having demolished the sarnies, me and Mr Flicking the Vs were quite hopeful of being able to finish our three tiers of wonder. By the time we got to the scones, we were beginning to change our minds. 

The scones came either plain or with fruit, and with coconut cream and raspberry jam. Debating whether the jam or cream goes on first is the sort of nonsense politicians discuss to try and appear like they have a personality of sorts, but I can confirm that putting truckloads of either or both on your scones is a wise idea. From what I can tell, the scones are wholemeal - or at least, they have a lot more flavour than standard scones.

Nestled alongside the scones was a petite pastry. Cafe Forty One, the hotel's restaurant relaunched a while back as London's only vegan patisserie, and levelled up its dessert offerings. The pastry -- a pear cinnamon bun with gorgeous chewy, flaky pastry -- just showed how on point the sweets at La Suite are. I wouldn't have minded a bit more of the fruit, but I'm just being picky here.

At this point, I was pretty much full, but being the brave soldier I am, I forged ahead. Only one tier ahead -- a spiced chocolate mousse, a cookie, and a truffle.

The mousse was a thick slab with a fruit compote on top. The mousse was a bit closer to a rich ganache than a light mousse, but the sharp fruit gave it balance. The dinky cookie was one of my favourites: a strong hazelnut flavour and crumbly biscuit that made a classy little bake. I'd love to tell you about the truffle, but at this point, I'd got the dessert sweats and only managed to finish it by the skin of my teeth. It was delicious though. (For anyone else who's got the good sense to stop eating earlier, you can get any leftovers boxed up to go.)

The La Suite West afternoon tea is everything you could ask for in a meal: imaginative, vegan, delicious.

La Suite West
https://www.lasuitewest.com/
41-51 Inverness Terrace
Bayswater
London W2 3JN