La Galerie, Plaza Athénée

La Galerie at the Plaza Athénée is a long gilded gallery with a harpist, red carpets and Angelo Musa’s pastry on the stand: the fashion tea of the avenue Montaigne.

The gallery runs the length of the hotel behind the lobby, with a glass roof at one end and armchairs the colour of the geraniums outside. The tea stand carries sandwiches, a scone with cream and jam, and four or five of Musa’s pieces, the mille-feuille among them if you ask; the harp plays from four.

Fashion week fills it; in the quieter months it is one of the calmest palace teas on the right bank.