THE LOBBY — Restaurant in Hong Kong

The Lobby is located in The Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. You can make reservations for high tea, but I think most people come and wait in line for available tables, which is why it's important to come before 2PM (when afternoon tea starts) as a line is usually formed by 1:30.

The Lobby is located in the common area of the hotel. So once you walk into the hotel, you're pretty much walking into the restaurant. There are chairs and tables decked out in with a small aisle for people to walk across. There's a small orchestra area on the second floor that overlooks the Lobby as the musicians play accompaniment music that suits the mood of afternoon tea. Fancy chairs, pretty silverware - the whole shebang.

We got there around 2PM and were lucky to get a table after only 10 minutes of waiting, despite there being a line in front of us. Some people were choosy and wanted a seat out of the sun, and the workers did try to accommodate them. Once you are seated, you're given the silverware in a very formal manner. Definitely made me feel a bit awkward as I'm not used to eating so fancy.

Afternoon tea set - pretty much what everybody is here to eat. A set for two is a hefty $628 HKD (roughly $90 USD). You can get a nice tea set for around $30-$40 in LA, so I honestly did not think the price justified what we ate. But for the ambience and simply being able to say "I dined at The Lobby", I guess it was okay for a one time thing.

There were three tiers to the tea set along with two tea choices. I have to admit - the tea was really good. I love tea and I could really taste the natural flavors of the Organic Peninsula Blend. I think the waitress recommended this as their most popular, and I can see why! My sister chose something from the Peninsula Tea Collection which was good, too although I liked mine better.

Out of the three tiers, I have to say I liked the scones the best. The raisin scones were still warm when the set arrived at our table. Super flaky and sweet, and adding the clotted cream and jam made it taste heavenly! The best scones I have ever eaten. I saw girls not bothering to eat their scones and I really wanted to eat it for them!

The other tiers were pretty disappointing. They looked nice, but tasted strange and off-putting. The savory sandwiches included a tuna roll, a quiche, cucumber sandwich, and some strange salmon cake. The flavors were okay, but nothing that justified $90.

The sweets included an over-the-top lemon cake, a way too bitter macaron, some weird raspberry dessert, and a coconut dessert. Again, everything LOOKED good, but even I couldn't finish the macaron or the lemon cake. Way too much.

The Lobby Club was around $30 USD. It came with French fries, but the sandwiches were cut without crusts and were so tiny - I'd take club sandwiches from any HK Café in the SGV over this!

The Espresso was frothy and tasted pretty good. You're also given free refills, which is nice. And the waiters will refill your teapot with water as many times as you want, probably why people tend to stay here for hours.

Service is really good for a place in HK. Everybody speaks English at first, but I think if you talk to them in Cantonese, they'll reply in Cantonese. We were even able to see some random movie star who was given pretty nice treatment as he immediately got a table and a drink.

tl;dr - A classy afternoon tea if you're feeling fancy and want the ultimate afternoon tea experience. Expect a really nice ambience with good service, but don't expect too much out of the food. If I ever returned, I'd only want those scones. It's definitely more worth it if you get afternoon tea for 2, but they can also add to the party size depending on how many people want the set. So if you have 3 people, they'll give you 3 of each item, etc. I was disappointed by the sweet and savory tiers, and I definitely think I still need to go to a high tea place in LA before I get my...

This review is limited to my experience having afternoon tea at Lobby at the Peninsula.

The afternoon tea was totally disappointing. The Peninsula Hotel is a true Hong Kong icon and having afternoon tea there is one thing that I've been wanting to do. I was thrilled to be able to get a reservation this time since my visits to Hong Kong in the past 25 years have not been long enough for me to fit this in and the restaurant did not take any reservations. I remember trying to get a table one afternoon six or seven years ago and decided to give up after seeing a crazy long line of tourists queuing up to get in for afternoon tea. I don't know when the restaurant started taking reservations but, on this trip, probably due to the pandemic restrictions and thus the lack of tourists from the Mainland, I was able to get a reservation in just a little over a week.

Service was disappointing from the get-go. It took the waiting staff well over 10 minutes to take our order after we waved at them. There were 5 people in our party: 4 adults and a five-year-old and we ordered the usual tea sets. The table only had 4 settings and we had to get the attention of a waiting staff before the 5th one was placed. For the next hour, we had to try numerous times to get the attention of someone to get water, to have our coffee refilled, and to get the check. I wouldn't say that the service was rude but a straight face and as-a-matter-of-fact responses from some members of the waiting staff was not exactly what I expected from a five-star hotel restaurant.

As for the food - definitely couldn't live up to the hype. Savory finger foods were bland and sweet items were over the top sweet. The scones were not worth mentioning at all. All of us just took one bite and moved on.

Overall, this was by far the worst dining experience that I've had on this month-long trip to Hong Kong this year. Way overpriced and unpleasant. Will definitely...

My friend had an afternoon tea reservation for her birthday. I've had lunch here a few years back, but not sure if I've tried the afternoon tea. Nevertheless I was excited to experience this. The lobby is on the ground floor, so there's step free access. Note, there are no restrooms on the ground floor, you need to take the stairs up or the lift to the first floor. I was surprised and disappointed to hear, you only just one choice of tea and there are no fresh refills. Traditional afternoon tea usually allows you to explore the different types of teas available and is included in the price. I opted for the breakfast tea, it was nice but nothing to write home about. The metal three tier then arrived, looked so pretty and divine, they were thoughtful in adding a candle and birthday plaque for my friend which added a nice touch. Sadly, it was all show and no substance. Actually we had to have it changed as a fruit fly was lingering and flew underneath a pastry. I don't think the staff appreciated me calling this out and immediately wanted it changed, how unfortunate. The scones looked overdone, the pastries didn't taste great, too sweet and lacked flavour. The sandwiches were ok but again, nothing special and I've certainly had better in London.

No wonder other tables just ordered a normal lunch and swerved away from the afternoon tea.

Shocked again at the fact you can't ask for complimentary sandwich refills or choose other teas. This is one of the reasons why afternoon tea is unique, it allows you to explore and try other tea leaves.

The tea sieve was unclean and not able to strain the teas and staff didn't seem that attentive. Not sure I'd...