Were you following me on social media this weekend? If you weren't you'll have missed my awesome experience of afternoon tea at Cahoots, London. I went to Cahoots when it first opened in March 2015 and fell in love from the moment I walked in. If you love themed, quirky, totally trendy places to visit and want an alternative afternoon tea - this needs to be added to your hit list. Be warned, when you step through those doors you'll be transported right back to the 1940's...
I'm a huge fan of this whole secret bar trend and Cahoots totally checks that box. Nuzzled in Soho just outside Kingly Court you'll notice a sign on the wall with an arrow saying, To The Trains with an old London Underground design to it. I was taking Mama Bean with me for a treat, before we headed to the Last Night of The Proms concert at Hyde Park. I could see how excited she was before we even set foot in the entrance.
Waffling slightly I said to the guy on the door the secret entry sentence, take me to the Captain, which to be honest was more of a question than a statement! He smiled and let Mum and me into the main venue down the stairs.
I knew what to expect having seen this place in 2015 when it first opened, but seeing my Mums reaction was priceless - she absolutely loved it! If you can imagine being transported to London in the 1940's, you've pretty much nailed what this place is like decor wise. The attention to detail is out of this world, and little did I know (but was about to discover) the afternoon tea was too!
On arrival we were taken to our seats and greeted by a smile, a cocktail in a tin and a brown paper bag each. The brown paper bag was filled with sweeties from that era too; white mice, jelly babies grapes, plums and paper aeroplanes to build! The cocktail we received initially was some sort of gin based combination in old tinned food cans. They were certainly setting the scene well and everywhere you looked you could tell a lot of thought had gone into keeping in line with the decade.
There is an area decked out like a London underground train and even a cosy air raid shelter for those more private and special occasions. There was a clear British WWII theme in this afternoon tea, giving me and Mum a chance to reminisce about Grandad telling us his tails of rations and antics from those days.
I was rather surprised to see so many people enjoying the Cahoots afternoon tea, I'd only recently heard about it! They had a fantastic band on whilst we had our afternoon tea - it truly set the scene hearing a bit of jazz. Both Mum and I were over the moon to be there and experience it all, I kept seeing us randomly gaze around looking for new things to discover we hadn't already spotted.
So what was included in this afternoon tea then? Firstly my Mum isn't a huge fan of your classic afternoon tea, but I was told this wasn't like that and right they were! Instead of a three tier cake stand with your cucumber sandwiches and butter scones, we had a little picnic hamper each with three striped paper bags in it. One had vegetable crisps in, the next had a ham sandwich, a salmon sandwich and a brioche jam bun in it, and finally the third bag had a homemade sausage roll and a pork pie slice inside it. Very fitting for this era don't you think?
Both Mum and I were baffled by how much food there actually was considering this was a time of rations! Not only were we greeted with a cocktail we could select another cocktail of our choice from their afternoon tea menu as well. After a careful debate we went with Hail n' Rail and April Showers, both of these were gin based as this, (believe it or not) was a very common spirit to have during this time.
Finally after guzzling one of the most delicious cocktails I've ever had, (big statement for me) we had Tunnocks teacakes, battenberg cake, Victoria sponge and shortbread biscuits for our sweet treats. Yep. Spoilt is the word you'll be looking for! We couldn't quite finish all our food so we hardly had our paper bag to pop our extras into to take away.
Would I go again? Would I recommend it to a friend? Cor blimey guv'nor of course I would! Worth every penny at £46 per person, I am 100% going back with my girls for a London treat at Cahoots. I'd even suggest possibly painting the town red and visiting this place in the evening for their wide selection of cocktails.
