Sex and the City Afternoon Tea

It was my birthday yesterday - the big 27. I am officially in my 'late twenties'. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I celebrated the occasion with a Sex and the City themed afternoon tea at the Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill, in Portman Place.

The tea is held in The Montagu - a light, airy space festooned with conical chandeliers. 'I wonder if the main restaurant is called The Capulet', my mum quipped.

On arrival we were presented with purple menus, sat in brown velvet chairs and asked to pick a cocktail. Far too early for a straight Martini, I opted for the more playful Flirtini (Champagne, Vodka and pineapple juice), while my mum chose a Cosmopolitan, chiefly due to its pink hue.

While perusing the menu, I clocked a glass Louboutin shoe with a signature red heal and crystal stem, perched next to a bottle of Piper Heidsieck. The Champagne house has collaborated with the sole man to create a Louboutin Champagne glass. Puzzling over the dynamics of how one can successfully imbibe Champagne from a shoe, the waiter came hurrying over to give a demonstration.

'You pour the Champagne in the heel, tilt your head back, and drink it through the shoe', he said proudly. I imagine it works better as a show piece than an actual glass, but the sheer audacity of the idea is applaudable. Fashion is theatre after all - Salvador Dalí and Isabella Blow would have adored it.

Time for tea! There are four brews on the menu, one for each of the four characters. Sensible Sapphire Earl Grey for Charlotte, Darjeeling for Miranda, the exotic Flowering Osmanthus for experimental Samantha and Organic Silver Needle White Tea for particular Carrie. I went for the Carrie tea, as the tasting note promised 'cucumber and melon freshness with a satisfying velvety finish'. While very refreshing, it was a tad on the bland side - not a cucumber or melon in sight.

What the tea lacked, the food more than made up for. Ceremonially served on a three-tier stand, on the bottom plate were quintessentially English cucumber sandwiches, slithers of juicy pastrami wedged between slices of Rye and adorable mini smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels - very New York. Moving up a rung the American theme continued with miniature hot dogs drizzled with mustard and a pair of 'Jack' Burgers, named after one of Carrie's boyfriends in the series.

At the top tier all manner of treats awaited – mini Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts, adorable mini pink strawberry cupcakes (as made by Charlotte in the latest film), cheeky Appletini vodka jellies that looked like a cross between Kryptonite and Listerine but tasted divine, and the pièce de résistance, a pair of strawberry flavoured white chocolate stilettos so artfully crafted it felt wrong to eat them.

The tiny red shoes were exquisite. I bit the heel off first, then popped the whole shoe into my mouth. Eating such a work of art felt strangely iconoclastic, but my guilt soon subsided when I saw my mum avidly munching on hers.

Sex and the City Par-Tea afternoon tea runs until 30 September and costs £39 per person. If you're feeling flush, for an extra £65 you can pimp your tea with a bottle of Piper Heidsieck Brut NV, and drink it from the Louboutin shoe.

Art Tea/Arch London

On Thursday I was invited to an event that combined three of my favourite things: Champagne, art and cake. It was a party held at the chic Louise Kennedy store in Knightsbridge to celebrate the launch of Art Tea afternoon tea at the Merrion hotel in Dublin. Quite why the party was held in a clothes shop in London rather than the hotel in Dublin remains a mystery, but one I was pleased to be part of.

The Merrion has built up a sizable collection of Irish art from the likes of Jack B Yeats (brother of the poet William Butler Yeats), Sir John Lavery and Paul Henry. Taking nine paintings as their starting point, the hotel's pastry chefs were tasked with creating a series of edible art works inspired by the paintings.

The results were impressive, from the lemon panna cotta with a raspberry mousse inspired by Robert Ballagh's Homage to Fernand Leger (pictured), to the towering mixed berry bavarois with cinnamon brioche – an artisitc interpretation of Jack B Yeats' brooding blue Defiance.

Some of the pastries were more of a nod to the work than a direct representation, but you could trace the thought process behind each of them. The mini art works were passed round the heaving shop on silver trays alongside cucumber sandwiches and clotted cream scones.

I enjoyed a selection of them between sips of Taittinger, my favourite being the chocolate and star anise macaroon. The crowd was very Sloaney, awash with velvet and pearls. One lady with a broken arm was sporting a silk black sling she'd sewn herself (presumably from a Hérmes scarf). A&E chic, who would have thought...

I grabbed a goodie bag filled with vanilla macaroons and a pot of lemon curd, and made my way to the Arch London, the latest townhouse hotel to launch in the capital. On my way, I peered through the window of Christian Louboutin. It really is a shoe shrine. Each red-soled shoe resides in an arched cubbyhole, like a saint in a church, and commands the same reverence from its worshippers. There is nothing to distract you from the icons – all focus in on the six-inch demigods.

I rocked up to the Arch in the rain with my cream scarf wrapped around my head in what I hoped looked like a homage to Hepburn. It's a bad business arriving at an event fresh from the rain – bedraggled rat is not a good look. Nevertheless, I sashayed through the door, checked in my coat and sought out Champagne. The hotel has a cosy feel to it, think log fires, bookcases full of the classics and inviting armchairs.

A lot of the rooms were on show, and we were given carte blanche to explore, passing from room to room like a game of Cluedo. All the rooms had a distinctly homely feel, but with a trendy twist. It was very Wallpaper* magazine, with i-pod decks, Nespresso machines and flat screen TVs in the bath! I walked into one bathroom and saw the headline 'JD Salinger dies' flashing up in a news bulletin. It was very surreal learning of Salinger's death from a flat screen TV in a hotel bathroom – what would Holden Caulfield make of that?