And we’re back to our days in London — I swear, we’ll get through all of these (one day soon, haha). Anyways, by our second day in London we were feeling a little more like ourselves and were ready to venture out a little further into the city. With a reservation at Sketch set for early afternoon (a reservation I made a whole month prior to our visit!), we made our way down to Carnaby Street for a little wandering, shopping and sight seeing on our first full day in London!
Carnaby Street is filled with darling shops, cute side-streets and is full of that real London charm. On our way to and from we stopped by a few London favorites – Liberty, & Other Stories, Pret a Manger (ya know, for a little mid-morning coffee to keep us going).
Liberty was at the top of my list of shops to visit while in London! I’ve been a fan of their floral prints for years and loved the history that the shop and space holds. The building itself was so, so beautiful, and the items they were selling were just as lovely as the historic space (first opening in 1875). Scott and I spent time wandering each floor filled with home decor, house plants, floral prints and the most gorgeous jewelry at Maria Tash. Scott ended up buying his London souvenir in the men’s shop at Liberty — an English made fedora that left with us on the top of his head that day.
After our stroll through Liberty and a little time spent admiring their lush florals, Scott and I made our way down to Sketch for a little afternoon tea! I’ll be honest in saying that this afternoon was one of my very favorites during our time in London — visiting Sketch felt slightly like a dream, a very Wes Anderson inspired dream!
Sketch is a quirky, 18th-century townhouse tea room that transforms into a cocktail lounge every evening. Afternoon tea is set in David Shrigley’s The Gallery – a pink and gold space that would make any millennial swoon. Decked out in pink tulip seats, rose gold lamps and 300 pieces of hilarious and slightly inappropriate artwork, Sketch is unlike any restaurant I’ve ever been to before. Coming into this, we had seen tons of photos of the space on Instagram – but seeing every detail in person felt so incredibly special.
Before arriving, we knew our time at Sketch would be about two hours long – which looking back, went by so quickly. Once greeted, you’re taken to your table (in which Scott and I swapped seats a few times to get the best views in — dorky, I know!) and greeted by your waitress – who, by the way – are all wearing matching mod style dresses for the occasion. The waitress helps you decide which of the afternoon tea selections best fits your wants (classic or champagne filled – they even have a GF options!) and then talks you through all the different types of tea selections, which you’re allowed to chose as many as you like, and then gets your pots of tea from there.
The tea selection is quite impressive and it may have taken us a bit of time to comb through each page to pick our pots. In the end, we tried two different types of black teas, a chai and an herbal tea. We definitely could have tried more, but were happy with our picks and may have wanted a bit more room for their delicious sandwiches and treats!
With the classic afternoon tea, you’re given caviar and a quail egg as a started. Scott is more of an adventurous eater than I, so he really enjoyed this part – but for me, well, we’ll just say it was all a bit too salty for my liking. 😉
Once our tea arrived we did a bit of a swap-a-roo with our seats so we could each take in the whole space. Watching the wait staff as they moved to and from each table felt a bit like a movie — with the waitresses in their mod dresses, the bus boys in white jumpsuits and the main man in charge in a light pink suit and hat. I told you the Wes Anderson vibes here were strong, didn’t I!
Wanna hear a funny story? While were waiting for our food to arrive, I noticed the sweetest little family walk in and get sat near our table. I remember thinking how pretty the lady’s dress was, and how darling her little kids were (so well behaved in such a fancy place). Anyways, we went on with our tea and after leaving the teahouse I received a message from a long-time Instagram friend — it was a photo of Scott and from the view of the table across from ours in Sketch! Turns out, this sweet friend knew the lady whose cute family I was admiring and had spotted us in her Instagram story. I swear, the world gets smaller and smaller each and every day — haha!
Once our sandwiches and sweets arrived, Scott and I knew we were in for quite a treat! I was actually super surprised that they had so many GF options, and was very happy to see that my spread wasn’t much different than Scott’s. Among our favorites — the pistachio cherry cake, homemade scones (with GF options too!) and macaroons!
Scott and I did a pretty swell job of polishing off our trays, which kept us feeling full for the rest of the day! Oh, and if you’re wondering about the price — it is a bit pricey for afternoon tea (about 58 pounds per person) but I will say that this is still one of my favorite memories from our time in London and is something that I would love, love to get to epxerience again one day in the (hopefully near) future.
And you didn’t think that I had forgotten about their ever-so-popular spade pod loo, had you? Taking a peek at these was hilariously at the top of my list of things to see in Sketch — with lots of bright white from the floor to the ceiling, space pod style restrooms and a pop of color from the ceiling to bring it all together, the loo at Sketch was quite a sight and just as popular as you would think. While entering the loo, I may have been scolded be a cleaning lady in a french maid’s outfit to go up the other set of stairs (I’m assuming now that the right side is for women and the left side is for men), but other than that — my experience here was normal and strange all at the same time. Defintiely a space not to be missed while visiting Sketch!
I hope ya’ll enjoyed hearing about our second day in London! We ended up chilling at the hotel for the rest of the day with our full bellies and tired feed. Yet again, writing this led to a whole rush of emotions coming back to me! I really need to get back on the bandwagon with sharing our time in this beautiful place (and Paris soon after that), and promise to share more days from our trip very soon! I’m already dreaming of going back to Paris next summer, but we will see! Au revoir, friends!
-Chelsea xo