Belmond Mount Nelson

High Tea was a delightful, delectable and enjoyable experience! Each course was an experience to be treasured. Asanda, our server, was amazing! She’s very knowledgable, pleasant and professional! I highly recommend High Tea at Belmond Mount Nelson.

We came to the Mount Nelson as outside guests in September, not as residents of the hotel, and from the moment we turned in off Orange Street we were treated as if we belonged there. That, more than anything, is what stayed with us. The Pink Lady does not ration its charm. If you have booked afternoon tea, the whole ritual is yours. Spring in Cape Town is the right season for this. The drive up the avenue already feels like an arrival from another century: the pale pink façade, the mountain sitting behind it, the gardens in that first flush of green and flower. The hotel opened in 1899, built by Sir Donald Currie of the Union-Castle line so that Cape Town would have a house as grand as anything in London. Churchill stayed here while covering the Boer War. Kipling wrote here. Queen Elizabeth II marked her twenty-first birthday here. John Lennon is said to have sat in these gardens. You feel that accumulation of stories before anyone has poured a cup. The place has been called the Nellie for as long as anyone can remember, and the soft pink that earned it the nickname Pink Lady still looks exactly right in September light. We were shown through the lobby into the world of the tea. Marble, palms, high ceilings, the low murmur of a room that has decided not to hurry. A pianist was already at work in the lounge, not performing at the room so much as keeping it company. Over the next couple of hours the music moved between gentle standards and quieter classical pieces, always at the volume of conversation rather than a recital. It is easy to underestimate how much that does. The piano turns a very good meal into an occasion. The tea list is the other reason people talk about this afternoon. Craig Cupido, the hotel’s tea sommelier and often described as South Africa’s first certified one, has built a menu of well over sixty loose-leaf teas, and on recent sittings it has stretched toward seventy-five: whites, greens, blacks, oolongs, a house blend threaded with rose, rooibos and honeybush for anyone who wants the Cape in the cup, and a run of more unusual infusions if you feel like wandering. We did not try to conquer the list. We asked, were guided, and ended up moving through several pots across the sitting, which is exactly how the service is paced. Each tea arrived properly made, in proper china, and nobody rushed us toward the next one. A glass of Cap Classique at the start set the tone without turning the table into a party. Then the food, which is the part people warn you about and still underestimate. Afternoon tea has been served here since 1989, and the current spread is a collaboration between the pastry kitchen and the tea programme rather than a tray of leftovers dressed up with a doily. It arrives in chapters. First the savoury: neat finger sandwiches, little tarts and seasonal bites that actually taste of something, not just of butter and ceremony. Then the scones, warm, with jam and cream, the point in the afternoon where everyone at the table goes quiet for a minute. Then the sweets, which are where the kitchen shows off: tarts, choux, small cakes, a few things with a South African accent among the French technique. Portions are generous in the old hotel way. We left fuller than we had planned and still wished we had paced ourselves better at the beginning. A box for what you cannot finish is part of the kindness of the service, and we were glad of it on the way home. What we had not fully expected was how much of the afternoon happens with the gardens in view. The lounge, the veranda and the terrace all look out toward the fountain, the old oaks, the palms and the beds that were properly awake in September. You can take tea inside and still feel the grounds, or sit out and watch the mountain change colour while the pianist carries on behind you. After the last cup we walked. The Nellie’s gardens are not an afterthought attached to a dining room. They are half the reason the hotel has kept its reputation for more than a century, and on a mild spring afternoon they are as much a part of the tea as the scones. Service throughout was attentive without hovering. Staff knew the teas, knew the order of the courses, and treated a table of day guests with the same ease as people who had come downstairs from a suite. That matters. Plenty of grand hotels perform welcome for residents and tolerance for everyone else. This did not feel like that. We would book it again, and we would tell anyone visiting Cape Town to do the same, whether or not they are staying. Come hungry. Come with time, because the sitting is meant to last. Ask for help with the tea list rather than guessing. Sit where you can see the gardens if you can. And do not skip the walk afterwards. High tea at the Mount Nelson is not a novelty stop on the way to the mountain. It is one of the few things in the city that still feels exactly like the story you were told about it, down to the piano, the china, the pink walls and the last smear of cream on the plate.

Plenty of food! Nomkitha chose our teas well. Our dietary needs were well cared for.

It was an amazing experience and our server Ntombi was amazing and was brilliant when explaining the course. We thoroughly enjoyed this experience and she was a very big part of making it a relaxing experience.

Incredible afternoon tea experience. Refined and classic with impeccable service from Thabisa who looked after us so well - thank you for making it such a special time for us!