*Our visit was complimentary (I did pay for drinks) in return for an honest review
We were back at The Sage on Sunday sampling the Mother’s Day afternoon tea, which was a real treat for both me and my mum as, close we are as a family, and see each other all the time, it’s very rare that me and my mum spend time together just the two of us and it was lovely to be able to treat her. Plus, in reviewing terms, there’s no one more honest than your mum, right?!
To be honest, of all the times I’ve been to The Sage, I’m not sure I knew they had a Brasserie, so that was a new experience on its own. Although they were full, there’s a nice enough amount of tables that it’s not overwhelmingly busy but there’s enough people there to create an atmosphere. The addition of the Mother’s Day flower wall (what influencer doesn’t love a flower wall?!) was a really nice touch and was definitely well used!
We were seated straight away and within about 10 minutes our afternoon tea arrived which was a healthy portion of sandwiches (ham and pease pudding – a good local touch, cheese and cucumber, chicken caesar and salmon and cream cheese) plus two scones each (1 plain and 1 cherry) with jam, butter and cream and a selection of mini cakes. Whilst food service was nice and quick, we weren’t offered a drink when we were seated and had to ask when the food arrived – after that though it came quickly. And we went for a glass of prosecco each, which was a really generous glass – free for mums and £6.50 otherwise which I thought was reasonable for a music venue.
I liked that the sandwiches weren’t the typical triangle cut with the crusts cut off; the salmon and cream cheese was more of an open sandwich which was a nice twist and the chicken caesar as a wrap worked well too.
In terms of the sweet stuff you couldn’t really fault the range of scones (thank goodness no raisins were harmed in the making of those scones) but, the sweet tooth in me always loves the top tier the most and the lemon tart, lemon meringue mousse, raspberry cheesecake and mini carrot cake were all lovely. If I were to be picky I would say that two lemon items were overkill and a mini chocolate brownie would have been good in place of one of them, but that’s just my personal preference. The lemon did act as almost like a palate cleanser between courses so in that respect were good.
I think for £21.95 the experience is good value, I’ve had afternoon tea elsewhere where we’ve paid much more for much less – and it’s good that mum’s glass of prosecco is included in that price. Will be good to see if they recreate what they’ve done for Mother’s Day for father’s day coming up in June – something like a ploughman’s lunch I think would go down really well – it certainly would with me and big Dave!
You can see what else is coming up at the Sage on their events page
