Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula

For a special birthday treat, Nathan and I booked a seating at Chicago’s Peninsula Hotel Afternoon Tea. Though the hotel offers two afternoon seatings every day of the week, reservations are recommended because they usually fill up! While extravagant, it was one of the loveliest dining experiences I can imagine.

When you are seated with your menu, you are asked to select your tea (and there are over twenty varieties to choose from) and are promptly brought a three-tiered tray of savories and sweets, as well as a plate of warm scones and spreads. Your tea is brought to you in a gorgeous silver teapot and poured for you using a tea strainer. The tea is brewed loose in the teapot, so throughout our seating, our server would bring hot water to add to the teapot, as well as refresh our teacups. Nathan selected a Rooibos de Hammam and I selected ‘Forest’ herbal tea with elderflower and raspberries. All the while, a cello and violin played in the balcony for our enjoyment.

Each little sandwich and sweet treat was presented with such beauty and elegance, and oh-so-delicious. The menu certainly changes throughout the year, so all the more reason to go back. It’s actually quite generous in portion, and we found that we needed to move our dinner reservation back by an hour because we simply weren’t going to be hungry for a while! We were even asked if there was anything in particular of which we would like another serving. If you get the chance to experience The Peninsula’s Afternoon Tea, do not pass it up.