Late last year (well actually it was just over a week ago), Ethel and I went to try the Premium Magical Afternoon Tea at Anti:Dote! I’ve heard a lot of good things about anti:dote so I was really excited about this.

Food Review

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The amuse boche was probably the strongest part of the savouries so I had a very conflicted experience with it. While I was glad that I had it, I was also acutely aware that every bite I took was probably equivalent to eating $5. Apart from that, I really liked the pea and ham tart!

To be honest, the rest of the food wasn’t as memorable as the things we had in Skai, and that includes the sweets. I think they did a great job in presentation and generally, the crust of the tarts were nice, but in terms of flavours, nothing stood out. My favourite was probably the raspberry and chocolate biscuit, partly because it looked like a log (I thought it was a mini log-cake at first), and partly because I like raspberry.

A word about scones, because what is an afternoon tea without scones? The good thing is that they serve proper clotted cream. The bad thing is that, like the rest of the food, the scones don’t really stand out. I think one of them was flavoured but a week later, all I remember is that I didn’t quite like it. Still, the texture was pretty nice and everything goes well with clotted cream or lemon curd.

One nice thing to end this section with: they give you a cookie each to bring home and I thought that was a nice touch.

Tea Review

The teas here were from TWG. The good thing is that you get a free flow of tea and the menu is more extensive than Skai’s (I’m using it as the main comparison because I went to Skai recently and because these two are next to each other). The teas I had were:

Holiday in Paris (Exclusive White Tea Blend) – this was a vanilla flavoured yinzhen. The vanilla was pleasant and I enjoyed it, but it overpowered the yinzhen. Given that they hyped the yinzhen as a premium tea, I thought it was a pity we didn’t get to enjoy its flavours more.

The Bellini (Exclusive Black Tea Blend) – This was a flavoured black tea with very strong peach notes and went pretty well with the food. If you are a fan of Lupicia or The 1872 Clipper Tea Co’s fruity black teas, I’m pretty sure you will like this.

Lovers Leap Pekoe – This was a straight Ceylon black tea. It had distinct woody and malty notes (like most black teas, basically) and was a good end to the afternoon tea.

Overall thoughts

Was this worth it? I can’t help comparing it to my previous afternoon tea and think, no, not really. We paid $68++ ($58++ for the afternoon tea and $10 to add on an amuse boche) and we got decent but not outstanding food. The presentation here was great, for sure, and the staff are friendly, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it at these prices. You could pay something similar and get amazing views and great food at Skai (though you only get two pots of tea), or if you want something cheaper, you could go to Renku, which also had very cute desserts (and when I went, had free-flow food and tea).

Of course, this is just my opinion. Ethel has also written a review of her experience on Instagram, so if you’re interested in getting a second opinion, please check it out.