London Restaurant Review: Sketch Afternoon Tea

While planning my last trip to London, I did what any millennial girl with a camera would do: consulted my saved Instagram folders. (Call me crazy, I have folder of saved Instagram photos for each city I love visiting or want to visit one day. It makes planning trips and travel photography a breeze.) I love London and want to help others see why it’s to wonderful as well. That’s why I’m breaking out a little London restaurant review of Sketch’s afternoon tea in the Gallery.

My London Obsession

Track with me for a moment, friend: Do you recall that unmatched feeling that comes when you start dating someone new, and you simply cannot stop talking about them? Your friends and family get to hear every whim and fancy every single time that person comes to mind. And for some reason, everything (much to your circle’s misfortune), everything down to the very oxygen breathed reminds you of them.

*Your mom sneezes*
You: “Oh my god, (insert name here) sneezed one time, and it was just the cutest thing! His nose flared, and his eyes closed. You know, I think he could have invented sneezing! Oh, it was just wonderful. …I guess you had to be there to understand, but it was wow.”

The irony is that you are fully aware that you are driving everyone crazy (and driving them away from you) because you won’t shut up about them. However, you don’t care! You just don’t care because your love for that person cannot physically stay contained inside your 5’7 body.

If we have just recently become friends, you must know one thing about me: That magical, sublime feeling is precisely how I feel about London. It can do no wrong, and I will love it as my favorite city forever. As if the obsession wasn’t obscene enough, going to afternoon tea at Sketch in Piccadilly, London skyrocketed my feelings to unhealthy heights.

Sketch: Afternoon Tea in The Gallery

Before you seriously judge me (I get it, I’d judge me too), watch the vlog! (If anything, watch the vlog to see the dinosaur bathrooms. Just trust me.) Stepping into Sketch feels like entering a quirky, whimsical world of wonderfully disrupting surprises. (In college, one of my writing professors advised us nerdy, bushy-tailed public relations majors to welcome disruptions as friends. They break up a pattern, shake people awake, captivate attention and provide a platform to communicate. The Gallery does all of these things. From its snarky little tea sets, to its dumbfounding artwork — the longer you stay inside, the more lost in its world you become. If the room’s oxygen was tangible, I’m fairly certain it would be pink. Champagne and tea is carried about in a blur by men in suits. And there are no windows in the tearoom, leaving you to feel outside of time and to forget exactly where you’re standing geographically on our little planet.

Sketch has five restaurants or rooms. The pink tea room we went to is the Gallery. If you’re hoping to get quality photos, I would get there right when it opens. (Check it’s hours here.) We went to Sketch in May, during the annual Mayfair Flower Show. Flowers were flooding every square inch like a Biblical plague, and while it was beautiful, it really raised the menu prices. Don’t feel like you are missing anything by missing the Mayfair Flowers. They’re not in the Gallery pink tearoom anyway.

If you find yourself in London, may you find yourself in a velvet, blush chair at Sketch. If you’re hoping to go there one day, bookmark this page for the future! (Or find me on instagram and save my photos to your own “England Travel” folder!)

In fact, I have a very exciting adventure coming up this year, involving London. The best way for you to support me on this adventure? Subscribe to my YouTube channel! And don’t forget to shoot me a message on Instagram — I reply to everyone!

Cheers!