The Lobby, The Peninsula Hong Kong

The Lobby of the Peninsula Hong Kong has served afternoon tea since 1928 with a string quartet on the balcony and a queue on Salisbury Road that the hotel refuses to replace with a booking: the mother of all Asian teas.

The lobby is a colonnaded hall of gilded columns and palms; the quartet plays from the gallery. The tea: finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, a pastry tier from the kitchen that invented the egg custard mooncake, and the Peninsula teas. No reservations, two sittings, a queue that moves.

Taking tea here is taking it at the source of the whole Peninsula tradition from Paris to New York.