High Tea at the Park Hyatt

The view from our table - pretty special!

My mother-in-law is over from Ireland at the moment and it was her birthday on Sunday so we were looking for something nice to do in the afternoon and I'd set my heart on taking her for High Tea in the afternoon. It turned out that Mr Jen's best friend's mum has the same birthday so we decided to take them all together. I had initally planned to go to the Gunners Barracks in Mosman but it was booked up by the time I phoned so it was back to the drawing board. The trouble with most of the high teas in Sydney is that they all seem to include champagne in the package - I'm sure that's not a problem for lots of people but we had a good few non-drinkers in the party and even I prefer for my money to go on the food than covering the cost of the drink. Eventually I had the idea of the Park Hyatt who offer a high tea for $36 a head or $49 including a glass of Nicolas Feuillate champagne at the harbourkitchen&bar. The only problem was that I couldn't find any reviews online. I normally love to check out an array of reviews before visiting anywhere new but I'd been to the bar there for dinner before and knew the view was stunning so I took the risk!!

On arrival I was very surprised that the restaurant was half empty. For such a great location, I would have expected it to be packed but given that I had to do a lot of online digging to even find out that they offered high tea, I suppose many people wouldn't have found it.

We ordered our tea from the very helpful and attentive waitress who also informed us that the tea and coffees were unlimited which was a pleasant surprise after the tiny pot that I got at the Victoria Rooms with their high tea.

Our trays of goodies!

Scones, raspberry jam and cream

The food arrived promptly. We started with the savouries. I felt like the tea could have been weighted slightly towards savoury with the addition of a savoury pastry or similar but my fellow diners were very happy with the balance. There was a smoked salmon sandwich with avocado, a ham wrap and a bruschetta topped with tomato and beetroot cream. All were delicious.

We then moved onto the sweet stuff! I was impressed with the scones which were still warm. I felt like we should have been given butter as well as the jam and cream but I didn't bother asking for any. One downside was the cream - I think it was whipped ordinary cream instead of the double cream that was promised on the menu (although not on the online menu). Would it really be too difficult to get hold of some clotted cream??

The top plate contained caramel mocha eclairs, mini pastry shell filled with raspberry ganache and topped with berries and a mint macaroon with chocolate ganache. I really couldn't pick a favourite as they were all so good - I wish my macaroons were even half as good as that.....

Lastly we hit the chocolate. There was a very dark truffle which I loved and a little pastry case with chocolate and raspberry which I unfortunately didn't get to try as Mr Jen stole mine! There was a also a cupcake on that level topped with white icing and a little piece of gold leaf. This was probably my only slight disappointment of the afternoon. Firstly one of the cakes wasn't iced properly and was missing its little gold cap and they were just plain cupcakes with a plain icing.

I forgot to mention the tea! There was an extensive tea menu plus a range of herbal infusions and coffees. I went for the orange pekoe, mainly because I like the name and I didn't want anything too strong tasting to clash with all the cakes!

In summary, a fabulous high tea with one of the best views in Sydney. I will certainly be bringing out of towners there in future, or even just Mr Jen who was totally blown away by his first high tea experience.

harbourkitchen&bar

Park Hyatt Sydney

7 Hickson Road

The Rocks

NSW 2000
(02) 9256 1661

http://www.harbourkitchen.com.au/