Chocolate Afternoon Tea at Acklam Hall, Middlesbrough

At Easter time a lot of chocolate is consumed, so I decided it was only right to eat more and go for a chocolate afternoon tea. Acklam Hall has recently opened to the public after a long restoration period to bring it back to its former glory after being an all-boys school. It is now a beautiful venue, able to host weddings and events as well as having a restaurant for fine dining. 

Following their grand opening, they've been promoting their chocolate afternoon tea on the run-up to Easter. Over the long weekend, I decided that it had been a while since myself and Mum ventured out for afternoon tea, so it was a chance to try Acklam Hall.

We were seated in the dining room and we'd arrived so early there was no-one else in the room. We had it all to ourselves. After getting ourselves acquainted with the building and doing the obligatory toilet visit, our pot of tea and plates of food were brought out. The staff at Acklam Hall were all very friendly and accommodating bringing us more tea and changing our sandwich selection to ones that we liked. 

When we were settled with a cup of tea, we started on the food. Sandwiches first, we're not animals! There was cheese savoury, egg and cress, chicken and ham. They were all lovely but as I'm not a massive ham fan, these were the two left at the end. On to the scones and there was one chocolate chip one and one normal. I only could manage the chocolate chip one as there was so much more left for me to try. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to scones I've had in the past as it was crumbly and just fell apart.

Then it was on to the dessert tray. This was where the chocolate was at! We had little white chocolate eggs filled with raspberry cream, chocolate orange tart, a hollow chocolate bunny and a piece of the most decadent chocolate mousse cake. All the desserts were delicious but by the time it came to eat the bunny I was stuffed and only managed his ears. Sorry bunny.

Overall we really enjoyed our visit to Acklam Hall. It is one of the closest venues to us being in the centre of Middlesbrough but when you're inside it doesn't feel like this. It's quiet and elegant. I will definitely be back to dry out their proper menu as I've heard great things about the food.