We were surprised to receive an invite to review the afternoon tea at Revolution (you know you’re Notts when you call it new Revs!) The bar is best known for it’s hen party atmosphere and crazy vodkas, not really the kind of place that you’d first consider for a relaxing, leisurely afternoon tea. It costs £20 per person, which is far from the cheapest in town so we had high expectations.

Rather than a pot of tea, the deal includes a selected cocktail each. I opted for the Espresso Martini while Emily went for the Pornstar Martini.

These were definitely the highlight of the experience (as you’d expect from a cocktail bar). The coffee martini had a good kick of both booze and caffeine with a crackle from some popping candy, while the passion fruit martini was just the right amount of sweetness with the obligatory shot of prosecco on the side and giggle at the name. On another positive note, the service was fantastic and none of the servers could have done any more and the tables flanking us received the same standard.

The cake stand arrived looking very impressive with 3 tiers of afternoon tea goodness garnished with fresh fruit. We went for the finger sarnies first, but unfortunately they were not great.

The prawn cocktail and coronation chicken were both quite bland, with only a few small prawns to be found. The bread was so incredibly stale it was almost crunchy on one end and we had an odd number of all different sizes. They tasted like they had been made several hours ago despite it being an hour after opening time.

Hoping for some improvement with the sweets, we eyed up the scone, jam and cream: the quintessential part of afternoon tea.

Oddly, it was just half a scone and already assembled with the jam and cream. Oh. It did look inviting, but the scone crumbled completely when we tried to pick them up, we ate them like an eaton mess with a spoon – not a good start. When we took a bite we realised that the cream was aerated like canned squirty cream! For the price and the fact that the scone is the main event of afternoon tea, that seemed a complete cop out.

Oh well, on to the next… We went for the cupcakes.

There was a red velvet cake and a chocolate cupcake with strange, messy red icing dribbles. The surprise here was that the sponge was beautifully soft, light and moist, very enjoyable indeed. The icing was teeth-achingly too sweet on both but they were still the best of the cakes.

We were left with a couple of tiny edge pieces of brownie which would have been dry cake before they had apparently been left in the same place as the sandwiches. The macrons were nice, but they were clearly bought in and not made at Revs, judging by the standard of everything else.

So, unfortunately we left unimpressed. Lots of places invite bloggers to review them and then ensure you receive the best food to try their utmost to get a good review. It always makes us feel incredibly awkward but we promise an honest write up without fail, maybe this time we got a more true-to-life experience.

To recap on the good points, the cocktails were very nice and from a wide variety, there was a nice sponge and the service was attentive. But, unfortunately we cannot recommend the food this time, especially when the champagne afternoon tea at Brown’s is £19.95pp, the cocktail afternoon tea at Curious Manor is £18.95pp and the sparkling wine tea at Copper is £15pp. For a few quid more, you can get the legendary Hart’s hotel afternoon tea, go to the Pudding Pantry for £21 or get one of Emily’s favourites at the Wonderland Cafe for just £23.95 for two people.

With this in mind, Revolution just isn’t competing with like-for-like offerings in town. Hopefully they can work out some of the teething issues and make some improvements.

Emily & Stu