Cafe Forty One

London's only fully plant-based hotel restaurant, in Bayswater: celebrated vegan afternoon tea, inventive desserts and an alcohol-free drinks list.

Cafe Forty One holds an unusual distinction: it is London’s only fully plant-based hotel restaurant. And it is best known, rightly, for its desserts.

Forget the apologetic fruit platter and the half-hearted biscuit. Cafe Forty One puts all of that firmly to bed with flower-adorned final courses built from ingredients like coconut cream, homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread and spiced-tea infusions: all the flavour, none of the animal products. It is dessert as a destination in its own right.

Those sweets are the headline act of the café’s vegan afternoon tea. Across the spread, plant-based pastries and mini sandwiches reframe the British ritual without losing it: coronation jackfruit, tofu mayo and cream cheese step neatly into roles usually held by something else, and hold them convincingly.

The drinks follow the same considered logic. Cafe Forty One is alcohol-free, but the list is anything but thin: a wide range of mocktails, Seedlip spirits, kombuchas and artisan soft drinks gives the meal its full sense of occasion.

What gives the café its charm is the completeness of the idea: a plant-based afternoon tea that wants for nothing, served with evident craft.

For a traveller in London who wants the afternoon-tea tradition done entirely plant-based, and done with flair, Cafe Forty One is a confident recommendation. Book the afternoon tea, and save your appetite for the desserts.