The Forbury Hotel, 26 The Forbury, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 3EJ

 

When KD said she wanted to go for afternoon tea in Reading and that it looked quite reasonable at £15 a head I was very impressed. When she mentioned it was in The Forbury I was astounded to realise I’d never thought of checking here before.

 

Cerise is the restaurant inside The Forbury Hotel and we headed there on a Sunday afternoon to sample the afternoon tea. They offer an afternoon tea for £15 – which includes a round of sandwiches each, two scones, a selection of patisserie cakes and tea. If you pay £20 then it includes a glass of champagne as well.

All the food was extremely tasty and we had problems finishing off all the cakes (though we managed it in the end, naturally). There were some hiccups with the afternoon – bizarrely, we weren’t given any knives (though we each had a fork and a spoon). As we were in a private booth area we couldn’t easily attract the attention of the waiting staff so we improvised with the spoons and everything worked out fine. We also constantly ran out of milk – only two small jugs for six people didn’t seem like enough. The tea isn’t loose leaf but I’ll forgive it that as the food was good and it’s very reasonably priced. This place is more about the food than the tea, I feel.

I would recommend afternoon tea at Cerise as an end to a hard morning of shopping or a good place to meet friends when you need a proper catch up. The atmosphere is calm and private and the food was very tasty.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No, Twinings teabags.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £15 for afternoon tea, £20 for champagne afternoon tea.
Cake? Yes – a selection including blackberry macaroon, fruitcake, strawberry tart, chocolate something, meringue and an eclair. Mini fruit and plain scones too, with clotted cream and strawberry jam.
Go again? Yes, definitely. You should too.