There are take away services and then there’s the Firmdale Hotels ‘Food at Home’ service, specially created to cater for the more discerning diner and actually it’s a London address delivery service too, so you don’t even need to leave your home, even more impressive during the Covid-19 lockdown period.

With 48 hours notice, you can place an order for anything from a Family Roast, Afternoon Tea, a Dinner Party or Weekend Brunch, and it’s super easy via the website.

We chose an Afternoon Tea with Champagne, it also included aromatic candles and tea ( water, milk and sugar to be supplied by the customer). We collected our delicious goodies from Ham Yard Hotel in the heart of Soho. It was beautifully and practically presented in Firmdale Hotel tote bags, full of hardy boxes to keep the food cool and unspoilt, the champagne was presented in a cool bag full of ice.

We ventured to a quiet corner of Hampstead Heath and set up our picnic area with chairs and blankets, a little dappled sunshine under a lovely old oak tree over-looking the lake, it was an idyllic setting and just what was needed following nearly 12 weeks of isolation, this was a treat indeed.

We had our cockapoo with us. so we decided to have a little champagne with the savouries, go for a walk and then come back for more champagne and the dessert part of the tea.

The Champagne was icy cold, delicious and the whole experience was beginning to feel a little decadent, perfect. The boxes were sealed and labelled and we found the smoked salmon sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches, which were really amazing, they were complemented with chorizo sausage rolls and tomato arancini, gorgeous little bite-size nibbles which were a pleasant change to just more sandwiches. I wish I had the recipe for the arancini they were fabulous, made with sundried tomatoes, olive oil, rice, Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs and mozzarella.

After a shady walk as it was quite a hot day we enjoyed a little more champagne and opened the boxes of scones and cakes. I love a scone and I’m pleased to say the cream was placed on before the raspberry jam! We had plain and fruit scones and they were simply divine.  Other boxes had lemon drizzle cake, one of my personal favourites, very rich moist chocolate tiffins,  delicate little raspberry Bakewell tarts and aromatic pistachio macarons. We stayed very late on the Heath there was so much to eat and savour. There was really too much for four but somehow we all managed to devour the lot. Not a crumb remained, which was just as well, I didn’t want to take any home, we had overindulged and carrying it on to next day would not have been a good idea!