Being the biggest Afternoon Tea lover in the world, I always get terribly excited when a new offering comes to Leeds. Especially one with a venue that looks like something out of a fairytale book… Yes The Lost & Found Club is the newest addition to the Leeds dining & bar scene; with not one, but two venues hitting the city. The space on Albion Street is the bigger of the two, and the one you’ll find yourself venturing into should you opt to try the afternoon tea out.
I’ve been to a few venues here before (prior to it being The Lost & Found Club), and what they’ve done with the space in here is pretty incredible. They’ve really made it into something special; somewhere that feels unique and luxurious, but with enough space to make you feel super relaxed and at home. There’s lots of attention to detail, beautifully upholstered chairs, a visually enticing bar, and a setup that completely separates the drinkers from the diners. Seriously, top marks for the decor.
Again, presentation wise top marks. Robert Welch cutlery, stunningly illustrated menus and some rather promising cocktail creations. There’s two offerings; Afternoon Tea and Gentleman’s Tea, both priced at £18.95 per person. I obviously went for the afternoon tea, and with this you’re also given the usual option to upgrade to a prosecco accompaniment.
Food wise, I couldn’t fault it. Super tasty, all home made and a decent, well thought out portion size. But the afternoon tea as a whole, I felt did slightly lack imagination – and with afternoon tea being such a big thing at the moment, you really need to stand out from the crowd here.
Sandwiches included Smoked salmon, cucumber & cream cheese; honey roast ham & piccalilli; and egg, mustard & cress. Tasty, but nothing stand out I’m afraid. Second tier, you get two feta, red onion & honey pastries each – really, really nice. Then it’s onto the sweet selection… Fruit scones with clotted cream & jam – these also went down well with me, as you actually get a serving of clotted cream each, instead of having to battle over just the one, a nice touch I thought – Earl Grey panna cotta (again, incredible); a cake of the week ,which this week was a lovely lemon meringue type sweet; and a popcorn tiffin.
Now let’s talk cocktails. The first cocktail I had, a gin based one (pictured), was absolutely gorgeous. In fact I commented to my friend that I’ve never drank a cocktail so fast before; and not only did it taste great, it looked just as beautiful. We were super eager to order more… but unfortunately the next two concoctions were terrible – and they both had to be returned, this is where the problems began. The first cocktail was taken away without a problem; I then ordered a replacement that was equally as bad. Our waitress came over and asked if everything was okay with them, to which I informed her that the next one was equally as bad – I feel that I should add here, my friend tried both two, and found she had exactly the same opinion as me, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just my taste – anyway, when feeding this back I did mention that I didn’t really want to make a huge fuss, so I’d just pay for the drink and put it down to bad selection. I’d kind of had enough at this point, and didn’t order anything else.
We then asked for the bill. A bill of which I’d been asked to pay a £10 deposit on at booking (fair enough), but the whole process of paying this deposit was much harder work than it should have been, which hadn’t given me the best first impression anyway, but it then wasn’t deducted from the bill and I had to spend the next day trying to sort out a refund. Now I do appreciate that this is a very new venture for the company and I visited on what is probably their busiest days of the week, so I’m hoping that these issues can just be put down to teething problems. They have a lovely space (probably one of the best in Leeds) and I really do hope my experience was just a one off, as it would be nice to see this place flourish… but would I return again for afternoon tea; unfortunately, probably not, no.
