Le Meurice afternoon tea: Cédric Grolet’s sculpted fruits at Le Dalí

Afternoon tea at Le Meurice belongs to Cédric Grolet. He joined the hotel in 2011, became its head pastry chef and opened his first boutique there in 2018, the year the hotel says he was named the World’s Best Pastry Chef. His tea is served in Restaurant Le Dalí, the room Philippe Starck designed at the centre of the hotel, and the mood the hotel gives it is relaxed.

The menu is a single formula, signed by executive chef Amaury Bouhours and by Grolet. It opens with savoury pieces: on the seasonal card, still the summer one when read on 11 October 2026, 3 finger sandwiches of salmon with caviar, ham with Comté and truffle, and lobster. Then come the Fruits Sculptés, his trompe-l’œil desserts in the shape of fruit and nuts. That card names blueberry, pecan, raspberry, Saturn peach, pistachio and mango, with frosted fruits beside them.

After the fruits the service keeps coming. The menu promises pastries and sweet treats “served throughout”, and Le Dalí’s page names warm madeleines, brioches and scones. The hotel also announces frozen creations in yuzu, passion fruit and coconut. To drink there is coffee, tea or a hot chocolate from La Manufacture Alain Ducasse, and the teas are Betjeman & Barton’s: Pai Mu Tan, Sencha, jasmine, Moroccan mint, Earl Grey, a Darjeeling, a rooibos called Jardin Rouge, verbena, linden and lemongrass.

Tea is where these pastries are eaten at leisure rather than out of a box. La Pâtisserie du Meurice, the boutique where Grolet sells the same sculpted fruits, was designed with the architects Ciguë in enamelled lava and Hainaut blue stone, and it has no seating.

Guests’ accounts on Google fill in the afternoon. A reviewer writing in July 2026, who had booked for 2, liked the savoury course, the frozen fruits in a heatwave, the madeleine and the sugar tart, and preferred the pecan and the pistachio to a peach found understated. One writing in February 2026 singled out a mango shell and the plum jam, and liked the herbal teas least. Another, in October 2025, had booked on the website, praised the hot chocolate and could not finish everything.

At Le Bristol, Maxence Barbot’s tea comes in 3 stages, savoury bites, a pre-dessert and pastries, with Champagne or a sparkling drink without alcohol, every day at Café Antonia. The George V serves Michael Bartocetti’s tea with a bakery piece by head baker Guillaume Cabrol made for sharing. The Salon Proust at the Ritz pours a glass of brut Champagne and a hot drink, and says it cannot adapt its menu to food intolerances.