AFTERNOON TEA AT GRAND PACIFIC

Zara Arif
Oct 23, 2017
5 min read

Afternoon tea is one of my favourite pastimes and I love experiencing it and enjoying new places with my closest girls (brunching also falls onto the same level!) and for my best friend to have planned a secret surprise afternoon tea date for my 23rd Birthday, you can imagine how excited I was! I didn't know where I would end up, I was simply told to get into an uber and had my itinerary emailed over to me just as I set off.

I had never been Grand Pacific before so I was really excited to visit this restaurant having heard about it reading the raving reviews, at first look I instantly thought 'well, this is aesthetically pleasing- let's get one for the gram shall we. . .'

Address: 50 Spring Gardens, Manchester, M2 1EN

Phone: 0161 839 9365

Website: http://www.grandpacific.uk.com

The interior was no doubt very chic, it had that minimalistic x gothic x nautical vibe throughout the entire restaurant. I love how clean cut and pristine everything was, I'm a huge fan of white interior with marble finished looks on furniture.

I also admired how attentive the staff were as they greeted us as we walked in and got us seated at a lovely table. I think we were automatically in such a good mood, and it definitely got us excited having a look at the different loose tea selections and the aromas of each one. I opted to try the red berry tea. I'm usually very safe with my hot drink choices and never venture out of my usual choices of the english breakfast or earl grey. However it was a nice and refreshing change to try a fruit tea for a change. I cannot fault the tea in the slightest, it was everything and more.

High Tea x 2

Total: £40.00 [£20.00 per person]

We chose the High Tea for 2 which amounted at £20 per person, which was relatively decent for what was included in the afternoon tea. So we chose our individual tea choices and opted for special dietary requirements for our afternoon tea which involved all vegetarian choices with no alcohol or gelatine. For the savoury tier that arrived we had a smoked salmon potato cake, crumpet with cornish crab butter, forbidden rice arancini with goat's cheese, salmon and tuna lomi, egg and mustard cress sandwich, cucumber and cream cheese sandwich and eccles cake with creamy lancashire cheese.

The choices were very bold, exciting and unlike anything we had tasted before. It was a menu you would either love or hate. More particularly for those with more adventurous taste buds. The flavours and textures were for those with experimental palettes of refined tastes and flavours. I think my favourite was the smoked salmon potato cake. I've never been the one to eat raw fishes, nevermind smoked salmon. However I had previously tried this at The Ritz and it had given me a new found love for smoked salmon. So I decided to give it a go and I was not disappointed in the slightest. What can I say really? It was a fine and quality bite of smoked salmon (and I will tell you the quality of the fish that you taste is everything!). I was also a big fan of the forbidden rice arancini with goat's cheese. I don't really know what was so forbidden about it really, but I enjoyed it as much as the smoked salmon potato cake. The goat's cheese arancini was like biting into a big ball of breadcrumbed cheese that had a crunch and just melted in your mouth like an explosion of flavour. It was tantalizing to the taste buds and was riveting.

The sandwiches however I found to be standard really, I thought they were tasty but they didn't wow me and I did find them a little bland in flavour. I however enjoyed the tuna and lomi little spoon bites and crumpets- it was very different and unlike what I've had before but I enjoyed the texture and flavours. However I wasn't a massive fan of the cornish crab butter, it was too much of a wild taste in my mouth and it was an explosion of flavour that didn't leave such a great aftertaste and most certainly didn't compliment the tea that I soon tried afterwards to wash down the taste with. I wasn't a big fan of the eccles cake either, but I don't like the taste of raison and it wasn't something I would pick to eat if I had the choice.

When the sweet selection of desserts tier was brought out, I was extremely disappointed. It was certainly the lack of choices they had for vegetarians with no alcohol or gelatine preferences that let the whole experience down. Due to our dietary requirements we were just given double of what we could eat and even then, the choices that we had just didn't deliver. There wasn't a single thing on the desserts tier that I could say I enjoyed. All we had were multiple mini lemon tarts, lamington lollipops, grand pacific fruit trifle and mini pavlova. The only item on the desserts selection that I ate was the lemon tart and pavlova and they were decent. But I wasn't impressed in the slightest with any of the other desserts. Due to the lack of choices and flavours. I thought for the price of the overall afternoon tea, the standards for the desserts offered weren't good enough. The lollipops were very dry and just after one bite, I just thought it wasn't worth the intake of calories for something I didn't enjoy. The fruit salad didn't impress me either- it was just a mini bowl of cut exotic fruits with a dollop of cream. I think I was expecting something a little more, even if there was a cake I would've been happy. So overall, it was a big let down. Especially because I had enjoyed the savoury options so much, it was disappointing having to pay for a bill when you didn't enjoy the desserts.

It was a beautiful experience and nothing could be faulted with the attentive staff members and how friendly they were with the quality service they provided. The ambience of the overall restaurant and how much I enjoyed the tea and savoury choices did manage to salvage the overall experience. But being as disappointed as I was with the dessert choices, I don't think I would choose to dine there again for afternoon tea. They would need to improve their dessert standards and bring out more variety for people with dietary requirements for me to consider dining there again, unfortunately.

(Scroll down for my overall review rating!)