With tea as the national beverage in the United Kingdom, it is no surprise to find endless cafes, tea houses and cake shops offering pretty desserts and tea. Peggy Porschen is one such cafe which is extremely popular with both locals and tourist because of it’s pretty shop decorations and layout. Peggy Porschen is an award winning cake designer as well as author. She also has an academy that teaches students baking.
You can spot the cafe from a street away with it’s pretty pastel pink store front and sweet floral arrangements along the main door entrance. It is not surprising to see patrons taking photos right at the store front for their Instagram stories.
The pretty pastel pink concept extends to within the shop with such saccharin sweetness to every flower and ribbon placed throughout the store. It is not difficult to feel like a girl in a doll house.
The ceiling had Victorian chandeliers lighting some areas and the walls were also decorated with baking books and cake boxes. The store also sells baking cook books decorating the walls for the avid baker. As Halloween was approaching, the store incorporated many pretty skull head elements in their windows and showcases.
The main counter is simple and straightforward with a clear and neat refrigerated glass display showing the cakes, tarts and cupcakes for sale. They cleverly lighted the counter with down lights covered by cake tins.
Whole cakes were also available for sale in very pretty boxes.
The owner clearly loved their brand and store front to incorporate that as the main menu cover picture
There were basic coffee, hot chocolate and cold drinks selections as well as some interesting tea infusions like rose tea.
The glorious Victoria has moist Victoria sponge baked with real vanilla, layered with raspberry jam and vanilla bean buttercream. It was a prettily piped cream layered cake with a very heavy dense texture. The cream frosting was sweet and lightly rasberry flavoured.
The rasberry, lemon and rose cake has zesty lemon sponge soaked with lemon syrup, filled with raspberry meringue buttercream and rose petal fragments. The cake was iced with rippled raspberry meringue buttercream and decorated with fresh raspberries. The taste of the lemon cake was very light with the same heavy dense texture
The salted caramel cake has vanilla, caramel and chocolate layered sponge filled with salted caramel and iced with caramel buttercream and topped with chopped toasted hazelnuts and chunks of English Toffee. This was the my favourite cake of the 3 as it had a good balance of salty and sweet.
However, the best thing I had from the shop was this skulls and pearls cupcake which was a Halloween edition of their best seller cupcake the chocolate heaven. The chocolate cupcake was very moist and the chocolate was velvety and smooth. The buttercream was light but creamy enough to pair with the cupcake. It’s a pity I could not stomach another red velvet cupcake
Overall, I agreed with most of the reviews that their cupcakes are extremely good and worth the calories but the layered cakes are too dense for my liking while my friends loved it. The tea were a nice pairing to the cakes and service was good. Only thing is the shop gets very crowded with their limited seats and popularity so do go as early as before 11am to get a table.
Address: 116 Ebury St, Belgravia, London SW1W 9QQ, UK
Operating hours: 8 am to 8 pm
Nearest station: Victoria station (10 mins walk)
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