[Paris] Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula

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Add: 19 Avenue Kléber, 75016, Paris
Tel: 01 58 12 28 88
Hours: [afternoon tea] 3~6pm
Website: peninsula.com/paris
Price: [tea set] €45/person, €80/two people [a la carte] €18~22/dessert, €12~18/tea
Tasted on: Nov 2014

Please note that this was an arranged tasting.

My chef took the team out last week (merci chef!) for a dessert tasting at The Peninsula. I had already visited this beautiful hotel in July during its pre-opening media event, but of course it’s a completely different experience coming back here after it’s a few months into operation. What we came for on this particular afternoon were desserts by Julien Alvarez, champion du monde de pâtisserie (world champion in pastry) of 2011, now the head pastry chef at The Peninsula. Ready to feast?

As typical at most hotels, The Peninsula offers an afternoon tea set (€45/person, €80/two people) as well as a la carte options (€18~22/dessert). Since my chef personally knows Julien Alvarez, all we had to do was order our tea, then wait for the desserts to appear on the table – needless to say that we fully trusted him to show us his best. For tea, I chose Shincha Kirishima (€18), an exceptional green tea from Kyushu, Japan, and later also tried Oolong Chataigne (€12), an interesting mix of Taiwanese oolong tea with chestnut flavor.

Then came the desserts. The first – Chou (€18) – is a vanilla and hazelnut cream puff with a melting praliné heart, served with gianduja chocolate sauce at the table.

The second – Autour de la Pomme (€20) –  literally “around the apple”, is composed of sour apple jelly, light lime emulsion, baked apple, and mojito sorbet.

We were then served some bite-sized pastries, including mini lemon tarts, carrot cupcakes with orange cream, and figolu (not pictured here but it was delicious).

And of course, warm fluffy scones.

Then, Emotion Chocolat (€22),  a mariage of Grands Crus chocolates punctured with crunchy macadamia nuts, served with “Macaé” (62% chocolate from Valrhona) ice-cream.

Lastly, Gâteau de Crêpes (€18), composed of citrus crepe cakes rolled with with yuzu cream, sprinkled with hazelnut biscuit crumble, then topped with coffee and milk chocolate ice-cream.

What a feast! Even though we shared each plated dessert among two people, we were still (happily) stuffed by the end. The crowd favorite seemed to be the vanilla hazelnut chou, while I personally really liked the gâteau de crêpes and wished that I had more room left by then to fully enjoy it. The lovely afternoon continued with a visit to other restaurants and kitchen space in the hotel, guided by Julien Alvarez himself, which is always fun to see. Before I knew it, it was time to rush back to our restaurant on full speed-walking mode, as we ourselves needed to prepare for the big Saturday dinner service. Until next time, The Peninsula.

For more photos of The Peninsula, check my previous post.