Flower Arranging And Afternoon Tea At Villandry With Zomato

I've often walked past Villandry on Portland Street and thought how nice it looks. It has an old-fashioned style layout, with a deli counter and cake counter next to a gorgeous flower stand (above), and you walk through to a light, spacious cafe on one side and a fancy restaurant on the other. It was a stroke of luck to get an invite from Zomato to go there for a blogger flower arranging class and afternoon tea so I could check the place out! This is something that's offered to the public once a month, and as a keen flower appreciator I was itching to see if I had any floristry skills whatsoever.  

The session started with a demo by a lovely florist from Moyses Stevens, and of course she made it look ultra-easy. We were told to start with a large hydrangea and build around it with an assortment of leaves, meadow flowers and peonies, and keep it round so that when you look down on the bouquet (or hold it above your head and look up) it's a perfect circle shape. 

Here's my finished bouquet as viewed from above. It was definitely harder to do than the demo made it seem. The florist told us that she only takes five or ten minutes per arrangement now, it took us all a solid hour. 

The trickiest bit was wrapping the bouquets so that they could have a water pouch at the bottom, one that wouldn't leak! A few of us bloggers got some help with this bit - no one wanted to be leaking on the tube home. 

After all that hard work, we were more than ready to sit down for tea. Everyone got their own stand with sandwiches, a scone with cream and jam, and five mini cakes. As a vegetarian I was well catered for with roasted veggie sandwiches, and I chose a really nice smoky green tea. 

The cakes were bite-sized morsels of yummy: lemon polenta, raspberry meringue, chocolate brownie, blueberry cheesecake, and a rich salted-caramel tart. 

I tweeted several photos of the event, but forgot to enter a competition run by Villandry for us. I don't think they were very impressed with any of the blogger entries as they announced the winner to be the rep from Zomato! This caused a few giggles, and must have been a tad awkward for the lovely Zomato lady. I've never seen that at a blogger event before, but this aside, it was ace of Villandry to invite us to try their flower and tea class, which is held on the last Saturday of each month. It's a fun thing to do with friends, and as well as having a delicious afternoon tea you get to keep a huge, stunning bouquet of flowers. See their website for seasonal themed flower classes, and other offers including their summer takeaway picnic deal. 

Flower arranging and afternoon tea is £53 (add £8 for a glass of champagne)

Afternoon tea at Villandry is £18 including a glass of champagne