In the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow, it has a bar/lounge called Champagne Central.  I'd heard of it and never took too much interest.  While I don't mind a wee glass of champers, I tend to save it for super special occasions (at the bells on Hogmanay basically).  Little did I know that it also did the most off the hook afternoon teas.  And most importantly food.  Like real food, not the sometimes pathetic little slivers of bread and cucumber on offer in other hotels/afternoon tea haunts.  Although if that's what you wanted I'm sure they'd deliver.

My mum and I found the deal on itison for a cream tea and thought "hey, why the hell not?".  Having never been before we expected our tea and a wee scone on the side - so I of course helpfully suggested we have some lunch first.  Mum decided on the chilli nachos (which kind of seems a bit rock and roll for afternoon tea time) and I got a sandwich with a side salad and vegetable crisps.  With my previous experience of afternoon tea I expected dainty little portions that would just about tide us over.  I was wrong, the portions were on the good side of generous - it was like they knew we were there.  My family has notoriously big appetites.  It's a bit of a running joke that we eat everyone out of house and home when we visit, and Christmas dinner is something for the Guinness World Record books (my count for roast potatoes alone was 15 this past Christmas).


We ended up sharing our lunches just to feel like we were helping each other.  The nachos were particularly delish.  Afterwards we were stuffed.  We still had scones to come.  Out comes the three tiered display with no less than 6 scones, fresh strawberries, clotted cream and teeny jam that can only be described as cute.  Not to mention we were now on to our second pot of tea (refills are free peeps!).  Perhaps we should've just had the scones for lunch.  Anywhoo, not the type to let the side down we demolished the scones.  Be both felt like we were going to explode after, but waste not want not!  It was worth it anyway, they were the nicest scones I've had in the longest time.


We paid the bill and attempted to walk it off a little before heading home.  It was probably more like waddling by that point.  I definitely had a food baby (triplets).  It was an absolute steal with the deal we had from itison, but we both agreed that we'd pay full price any time for the quality and quantity of what we got.  Not to mention the lovely relaxing atmosphere, cushy seats and great service.  If you love afternoon tea I'd definitely check it out.  We had the simple tea option, but as it's a champagne bar you can also get the champagne teas - or just the champagne.  Whatever floats your boat!

*This post is not endorsed by the Grand Central Hotel or itison.  All opinions are my own and I wrote this post because I wanted to, I just really love tea and scones...