Afternoon Tea at The Ritz: Price, Dress Code, Booking

Afternoon tea at the Ritz is the most famous version of a very English ritual, and the one most likely to go wrong before you arrive. People turn up in the wrong clothes, try to book a fortnight ahead, or go looking for a room that is not currently open.

Here is what it costs, what the dress code actually says, and how far ahead you genuinely need to book.

It is not in the Palm Court at the moment

Start here, because almost every guide still gets it wrong. Afternoon tea is currently served in William Kent House, an eighteenth-century building that forms part of the hotel. The Palm Court, the gilded room in every photograph, is not where you will be sitting.

The Ritz is partway through a refurbishment reported at £300m, the largest in its history. Their own website no longer mentions the Palm Court on any afternoon tea page. They have not published a date for tea returning to it, so anyone telling you when is guessing.

William Kent House is not a consolation. It is a genuinely grand eighteenth-century interior with a musical ensemble playing through service. But if you are booking specifically to sit in the Palm Court, you should know that you cannot yet.

One more trap: search results still surface a Ritz press release quoting tea “from £61”. That page is dated July 2020. It was a pandemic reopening announcement and the price has not been current for years.

How much afternoon tea at the Ritz costs

Prices start from £95 for adults and £73 for children. Note the wording, which is the Ritz’s own: it is a floor rather than a flat rate, so a particular sitting or date may be more. A discretionary service charge of 12.5 per cent is added on top, which makes £106.88 a head the minimum you will actually pay.

Champagne is a la carte rather than a fixed upgrade tier, which is unusual. A glass starts at £26 and the Ritz states that this includes VAT at the prevailing rate. Claridge’s and the Dorchester both sell a set Champagne tea at a fixed premium; the Ritz lets you decide at the table. Celebration cakes are £30 for four inches and £48 for six.

For comparison, our main afternoon tea guide sets out what every grand London hotel charges once service is included. The Ritz is not the most expensive. Claridge’s and the Dorchester both land higher once their 15 per cent is applied.

The dress code, in their words

This is the part that catches people, and the part most often reported inaccurately.

The Ritz’s own wording, which appears identically on their tea page, their FAQ and their reservation page:

Gentlemen are required to wear a jacket and tie (jeans and sportswear are not permitted for either ladies or gentlemen) for Afternoon Tea and for lunch and dinner in The Ritz Restaurant.

The sentence has grown since most guides copied it. It now covers the restaurant as well as the tea, so a jacket and tie is the rule for lunch and dinner in the two Michelin starred Ritz Restaurant too, not only for the afternoon.

So: jacket and tie for men, no jeans, no sportswear.

Trainers are not mentioned. You will read in a great many places that the Ritz bans trainers. Their own dress code does not say so, and their children’s clause explicitly permits them. Trainers are banned by name at the Goring, not here. We would still not wear them, but it is not the stated rule.

Other clauses worth knowing:

• The code does not apply to children under 16
• Children aged 2 to 15 are asked for smart casual. Jeans and trainers are permitted, sportswear is not
• Elsewhere in the hotel, including the Rivoli Bar and the Secret Garden, it relaxes to smart casual and smart jeans are allowed
• Sportswear is not permitted anywhere in the hotel’s restaurants or bars

If you are travelling light and have not packed a jacket, the practical answer is to buy or borrow one. They do turn people away, and the tie is not negotiable.

It is not a Ritz-Carlton, and the Ritz says so itself

This trips up a surprising number of bookings, usually made through a loyalty programme that does not apply. The hotel answers it directly on its own FAQ page:

The Ritz London is an independent hotel, not part of the Ritz Carlton.

So no group points, no group status, no group booking channel. One hotel on Piccadilly, owned and run on its own, which is also why its tea has a dress code that a chain would have quietly dropped years ago.

Sittings and how long you get

Five sittings daily, seven days a week: 11.30am, 1.30pm, 3.30pm, 5.30pm and 7.30pm.

A table runs between an hour and a half and an hour and three quarters. Arrive at least five minutes before your sitting; the schedule is tight by design and lateness eats your own time rather than theirs.

The evening sittings are the quieter and more interesting bookings. A weekday 7.30pm tea with the piano, cello and violin trio playing is a different and better experience than a packed Saturday afternoon, and it is easier to get.

Booking

The Ritz advises booking months in advance, especially for weekends. That is their own guidance, not ours.

You may see it said that reservations open twelve weeks in advance. The Ritz does not publish a booking window anywhere we could find, so treat that as folklore.

The cancellation terms are strict and worth reading twice:

• Free cancellation up to 48 hours before, or seven days for parties of seven or more
• Cancel later than that and the charge is the full £95 per person
• No card charge is taken at booking, though you can prepay if you prefer
• Dietary requirements need 48 hours notice

That full-price late cancellation is unusually punishing. Put the deadline in your calendar the moment you book.

What you actually get

Twenty loose-leaf teas. Then, in order: finger sandwiches; warm plain and raisin scones with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry preserve; pastries and teacakes; and finally two slices of cake cut at your table from a guéridon trolley.

On refills, the wording matters. Sandwiches, tea, pastries and teacakes are replenished on request rather than automatically, so you have to ask. The cake course is specified as two slices. Nobody minds you asking, and most people do not realise they can.

Vegan and vegetarian teas are available, coffee can be substituted for tea, and there is a children’s version. Photography is fine if it is discreet and you are not carrying professional kit.

Music runs throughout: a pianist at most sittings, a harpist in the Music Room, and the trio on weekday evenings.

Is it worth it?

Honestly, it depends what you want from it.

If you want the institution, yes. The hotel opened in 1906 and has served tea ever since. The service is genuinely excellent, the room is grand, and the whole thing is executed with a seriousness that justifies the price. You are paying for the Ritz doing the thing the Ritz is known for.

If you want the best tea in London on its merits, it is a harder case. The Connaught costs £92 all in with nothing added, and the Goring costs £75 in a lovelier, more relaxed room. Both are excellent and neither requires a tie or months of planning.

If you are going for the Palm Court specifically, wait. That is the one clear answer. The room you have seen is not currently part of the experience, and no return date has been announced.

If you decide against it

Our guide to afternoon tea in London compares every grand hotel on menu price against what you actually pay once service is added, which reorders the list considerably. The afternoon tea bus is the opposite proposition and surprisingly good, and the route happens to pass the Ritz.

If it is the Mayfair hotel setting you are after rather than the tea, the best hotels in London covers the Ritz and its neighbours properly.

Rechecked against the Ritz’s own pages on 28 September 2026. Tea is still served in William Kent House and the Palm Court is still not mentioned anywhere on their afternoon tea pages. The prices, the sittings, the dress code sentence and the Champagne note above are all quoted or taken directly from those pages. Where their wording says prices start from a figure, this page now says the same rather than rounding it into a flat rate.