Globe Bar @ The Langham , Millers Point

Before the heritage building housing the Sydney branch of The Langham joined the international chain, it used to be a boutique luxury bearing the name of the Observatory Hotel. We'd been to the Observatory for high tea many years ago and had enjoyed the atmosphere, so my family decided to pay a visit post-ownership-change.

On the ground level and next to Galileo the restaurant, the Globe Bar & Brasserie offers Tiffin afternoon tea sittings that start from $49 on weekdays and $59 on weekends. Wooden bookcases, dim lighting and dark upholstery differentiate this lounge from its more formal, British counterpart. Kind of like distinguishing between the more relaxed drawing rooms from the sitting rooms a few centuries ago in England. Both elegant and formal, but with different purposes.

There's a relatively small list of teas to choose from, but there's a good mix of black, oriental and herbal teas. I opt for the sencha green tea, which tasted a little strange - sour notes and lacking the fragrance that usually makes green tea so identifiable.

Sencha

Our 3-tiered stands arrived. On the savoury plate there were smoked salmon and cream cheese, beef (I think?) and egg sandwiches, as well as chicken pot pies. The finger sandwiches were pretty standard, while the pies were pretty tasty, though the pastry was more dense and soft than flaky.

Finger Sandwiches

The scones, with the double cream and homemade strawberry jam, were quite tasty. Mum wasn't the biggest fan of them because they had quite a biscuit-like texture (she prefers the soft, cakier scones), but it's hard not to find scones that have that slight crunch.

Plain and raisin scones

Due to the vast variety of sweets, we couldn't finish them all, but we were assured that we would be able to take them home in plastic boxes (except for the rhubarb crumble, as they were in those little ceramic pots). They were all really sweet - the sweetest was probably the slice of mud cake, because it was pretty much a slab of thick, fudgy chocolate ganache. The little banoffee "pie" was good - the cream, thin slice of banana and the chocolate pastry balanced against the intense sweetness of the caramel inside. I'm not the biggest fan of rhubarb because of how sour it is, but I think the rhubarb crumble was pretty standard, as were the maracrons.

Pastries and cakes

And so we left at the end of our 2 hour seating with stuffed stomachs and still had a box of goodies to take back with us!