Whenever I go back to the UK for a visit, I have two food priorities: at least one sausage roll from Greggs, and an afternoon tea. Last summer we tried the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed afternoon tea at One Aldwych in London. They have a separate vegan menu online, which is important because I like to make sure it’s not just going to be hummus sandwiches and a fruit plate. This one looked like it should deliver.

The savoury plate was not super exciting, which probably isn’t surprising given that the theme is a chocolate factory. We received five savouries each (and were offered refills, but let’s not be silly here), and I’ll go through them from left to right. The bright pink macaron was beetroot flavoured. I loved the texture, but not the taste – it was too sweet for me for a savoury plate. Dr HH and Mother HH both loved it though. Next was a mushroom toastie, which was meaty and melty, but unfortunately a bit cold. This was most likely our fault for not eating it right away, though.

The middle sandwich on brown bread was coronation cauliflower, which left us all bit underwhelmed. The seasoning was a bit too mild, I’d have liked it to pack more of a punch. The spinach and hummus roll was really elevated by the chutney on top – we’d been expecting this to be a bit of a boring, lazy option, but it was one of the favourites in the end. And the final one was the standard cucumber and cream cheese, which is never going to set the world on fire but you can understand why they’d want to include it for the purists.

Even with the expected focus on the sweet rounds, it would have been nice to see a bit more creativity here. Give us some pastry!

There was a bit more of a twist when we were served the scones. The scones themselves were pretty standard, one plain and one raisin each. They were quite small, which was perfect for a big meal, and nicely baked. We got a pot of chocolate ganache, which was too decadent for my companions, but I enjoyed it in moderation – you definitely didn’t need to ladle it on. Then there was a pineapple cream, which looked a bit split and unappetising in the pot but was actually really good. It was quite mildly flavoured and went nicely with the “snozberry” jam. While this sounded exciting, it was just strawberry. Still, there was a bit of a twist on the classic scone course, so we were on board.

Then came the desserts, the real showcase of the meal! I’ll go through them from left to right again. It seemed like the bubblegum candy floss was popular with the younger diners in the room, but quite unnecessary for us – we just tried a bit and moved on to the good stuff. There was a little chocolate milkshake, which had the texture of chocolate milk rather than a shake. That wasn’t really a problem considering the size of the meal, but still, it’s nice to get accurate terminology. And then there was another macaron, this time strawberry flavoured with a chocolate disc on top. This was my favourite of the sweets, though Mother HH and Dr HH preferred the savoury macaron. The chocolate on top was really fun though, it elevated the texture.

The shot glass contained a panna cotta, some passionfruit, and chocolate ganache. All the elements were nice, but we weren’t convinced that it was a cohesive dish – the ganache didn’t really go with the other two layers for me. The little lemon cake had a fantastic light sponge and was lovely and refreshing, though there was a bit too much cream. I skipped the final dessert, which entailed three beans: tonka, coffee, and jelly bean (I hate coffee, which was the dominant flavour). According to my family, it was flavoursome and quite different from anything they’d had before, which is nice.

Our general feeling was that the whole affair was a bit style over substance, which is the risk you take with a themed aftenroon tea, I suppose. Nothing was so amazing that we’ll reminisce about it for years to come, but everything was tasty and it was well balanced. The theme wasn’t as coherent and impressive as it was for me when we went for a science afternoon tea in London a few years ago, but there were some nice touches in the décor and it was very family friendly.