Three Mayfair hotels have published 2026 festive afternoon tea prices: Claridge's at £120, The Connaught from £105 and The Chesterfield at £105 on holiday dates. Every figure below was read on 29 October 2026 from the hotel's own menu or festive page.
Most of what a search turns up is older. Booking sites and seasonal round-ups are still showing the 2025 season, and a guide on bondstreet.co.uk is still live with the 2023 prices. The gap is not small. The Connaught's 2023 festive tea was listed at £95 a head; its 2026 menu starts at £105 and now includes a glass of Champagne or a festive mocktail.
What follows covers the hotels that have published, the ones that have not, what each price includes, and the service charge that none of the headline figures carries. For the wider season in W1, our page on Christmas in Mayfair covers the lights and the dining.
Which Mayfair hotels have priced their festive afternoon tea for 2026
As of 29 October 2026, Claridge's prices its festive afternoon tea at £120 on weekdays and £130 at weekends. The Connaught charges £105 to £150 from 18 November to 1 January 2027, except Christmas Day. The Chesterfield sets £105 an adult for 25, 26 and 31 December.
Each hotel publishes in a different way, and the format tells you how much is settled. Claridge's, on Brook Street, has a 2026 festive afternoon tea menu as a PDF linked from its festive page, served in The Foyer and Reading Room. The menu gives prices and dishes but no dates, and the festive page itself gives none for the tea either.
The Connaught, on Carlos Place, has the most complete record. Its 2026 Christmas menus brochure carries the dates, the full tea menu, an adult price band and a children's price, all on one page, with Jean-Georges at The Connaught named as the room.
At 35 Charles Street, The Chesterfield publishes least. Its afternoon tea page announces a Winter Wonderland Afternoon Tea, "served daily from 12.30pm, with the last sitting at 5pm", but the only prices on the hotel's own site sit in the FAQ on its festive page, and they apply to 3 days only.
Claridge's against The Connaught, price for price
The 2 most complete menus come from 2 hotels in the same group, Maybourne. They price the same idea very differently.
At Claridge's the £120 weekday and £130 weekend price includes a glass of Billecart-Salmon Le Réserve, or Wild Idol, an alcohol-free sparkling wine. A glass of Billecart-Salmon Le Rosé takes it to £140, and the 2012 Louis Salmon Blanc de Blancs to £180. The sandwiches include roasted Norfolk turkey with stuffing and cranberry, and a Claridge's Christmas pudding with brandy Anglaise sits between the savoury course and the scones.
At The Connaught the band is £105 to £150 per person, and the difference is the glass you choose: Billecart-Salmon Brut or Rosé, Bollinger La Grande Année 2014, Krug Grande Cuvée 171ème Édition, or a festive mocktail. Its menu opens with a wild mushroom swirl and ends with a blood orange marmalade sablé. Children have their own tea at £57 each, with a festive mocktail.
Both hotels add a discretionary 15% service charge, printed on each menu. Worked through, the lowest weekday table at Claridge's comes to £138 a head and the weekend price to £149.50. The Connaught's lowest price comes to £120.75, and its top price to £172.50. Before service, The Connaught's entry price is £15 below Claridge's weekday figure, and both include a first glass.
Fun fact: Claridge's own tea menu quotes its culinary director, Simon Attridge, as saying the hotel slices approximately 57,792 loaves a year, lengthways, for the service alone.
Why last year's prices are still in circulation
The common assumption is that a booking site or a seasonal guide shows the current price. For festive tea in Mayfair this October, that is mostly wrong.
A festive tea guide on bondstreet.co.uk, checked today, is still online with the 2023 season: The Connaught at £95, Brown's Hotel at £95, The Beaumont at £75 and The Biltmore at £80. Nothing on the page says the figures have expired. Booking-site listings found the same day still carry the 2025 season, with The Connaught "from £108" for 18 November 2025 to 4 January 2026 and Brown's at £100 for its 2025 run.
Against those listings, the 2026 figures move in both directions. The Connaught's lowest price is £3 under the £108 from-price those listings show for 2025, but £105 now includes the first glass. Claridge's £120 and £130 are the same as the figures its own site showed when we first checked the 2026 menu on 17 October.
In practice, a price read on a third-party page this month is a guide to last winter. The hotel's own 2026 menu is the only figure worth planning around, and three Mayfair hotels have one so far.
Dates, Christmas Day and booking
Hotel by hotel, the details that change a booking.
The Connaught. 18 November 2026 to 1 January 2027, not served on 25 December. Jean-Georges at The Connaught, Carlos Place, W1K 2AL. Booking is online through the hotel's festive page, or Jean-Georges on +44 (0)20 7107 8861.
Claridge's. £120 weekdays, £130 weekends. The Foyer and Reading Room, Brook Street. Claridge's festive page shows no start or end date for the tea today. The hotel's line is +44 (0)20 7629 8860.
The Chesterfield. Winter Wonderland Afternoon Tea, daily from 12.30pm, last sitting 5pm. On 25, 26 and 31 December the price is £105 an adult, £115 with Champagne and £65 a child under 12. The hotel does not publish the price for other days on its own site.
Service charge. Claridge's and The Connaught each add 15%. The Chesterfield's festive FAQ gives its prices without saying whether service is added.
Christmas Day. Of the 3, only The Chesterfield states that it serves the festive tea on 25 December. The Connaught excludes the day; Claridge's tea menu does not say either way.
All 3 are in Mayfair, W1, in the City of Westminster on the western side of the West End: Claridge's on Brook Street, The Connaught on Carlos Place, whose brochure describes Jean-Georges as overlooking Mount Street, and The Chesterfield on Charles Street, off Berkeley Square.
The hotels that have not published a 2026 price
As of 29 October 2026, The Beaumont describes a festive afternoon tea on its Christmas page but gives no price or dates, and The May Fair shows no 2026 festive tea price on its own site. Brown's Hotel and The Dorchester did not load for us on 29 October, so no 2026 figure for either could be confirmed.
On its Christmas page The Beaumont calls its afternoon tea "the ultimate festive experience" and points readers to the hotel on +44 20 7499 1001. Booking-site listings give Brown's 2025 festive afternoon tea in the Drawing Room at £100, with a Christmas Day price of £120; whether those figures hold for 2026 is unknown until the hotel publishes.
One festive afternoon tea just outside Mayfair is fully priced. The Ritz, across Piccadilly in St James's, runs its Christmas Afternoon Tea from Saturday 14 November 2026 to Wednesday 6 January 2027, at £125 an adult and £83 a child up to 15, rising to £140 and £92 on Christmas Day, with sittings at 11.30am, 1.30pm, 3.30pm, 5.30pm and 7.30pm.
Readers waiting for The Beaumont, Brown's or The Dorchester can ask each hotel directly for its 2026 menu, which is the only reliable answer until it goes online. Our earlier piece on afternoon tea in Mayfair covers the year-round rooms.
So the choice comes down to 3 facts. The Connaught's festive afternoon tea starts at £105 and includes a glass of Champagne or a mocktail, with a children's tea at £57, and it is not served on Christmas Day. Claridge's starts at £120 on a weekday and £130 at a weekend, also with a first glass, in The Foyer and Reading Room. The Chesterfield is the one of the 3 that confirms it serves on 25 December, at £105 an adult.
Add 15% at the 2 Maybourne hotels before comparing. Anyone set on The Beaumont, Brown's or The Dorchester should ring rather than rely on a listing, because every price found online for those 3 today belongs to an earlier season.
