When many of my favorite things in life get together to create the perfect high tea experience.
I love tea – I love it cold, hot, masala or plain, any time of the day & any day of the year. Longtime readers will know the depth of my love for the famed beverage, I even have a separate category of this blog dedicated to TEA.
I also love eating out & visiting cafés, & a high tea is one of my favorite excuses to get out of the house (second only to breakfast / brunch). In Mumbai, there are a great dearth of places that do a truly nice high tea. So when I discovered Taj Lands End had started serving their own spin on high tea at Atrium Lounge, I had to go & suss it out for myself.
Their high tea is not the traditional English one – it’s said to be inspired by both the Portuguese Princess Catherine de Braganza (& Goan / Portuguese food & culture) along with Bandra’s historical culture.
As many of you may know / recognise, I am Goan & so a lot of the dishes were very familiar to me. I also went to college in Bandra for four years, it’s a suburb I know better than my home of Andheri. When Anirudhya Roy, the Executive Chef at Lands End talked about the places they went to research, they were my old college haunts that I went to almost daily, when the canteen got too boring or stuffy (also the canteen never served roast chicken or fugiyas!)
They have both an alcoholic & non alcoholic version of the high tea. I was a little skeptical about drinking in the afternoon, but the sparkling wine & shandy that I tasted were light, effervescent & refreshing, perfect for a chilled out afternoon by the sea.
They have a selection of teas, the one I tried was made in Portuguese style, strong, sweet with some spices & made fully in milk (no water!)
Taj Lands End has also associated with the cool cats at Kulture Shop to display some of their beautiful artworks in Atrium Lounge, I even *finally* bumped into co-founder Jas while there. On that note, do check out this post from Pondicherry where I wore what still remains my favorite Kulture Shop tee.
The food was a mix of classics high tea fare with some unconventional stuff. Think British, Goan, Bombay, all in one. I’m still kicking myself at not trying the Scotch Egg but I did enjoy the bebinca – it brings back all childhood memories of being in our ancestral home in Goa, watching mom help the caretaker painstakingly prepare each layer under a fire of coconut husk (you know, the same bit coir is extracted from).
It’s a rotating menu, so that you don’t get bored even if you choose to visit on subsequent days.
All in all, the Bandra Hi Tea at the Atrium Lounge at Taj Lands End left me feeling all happy inside, I do look forward to visiting again soon! x
Atrium Lounge, Taj Lands End, Byramji Jeejeebhoy Road, Band Stand, Bandra West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400050
• website
