Barbie High Tea

Overview

How easily entertained we were as children — dressing up in our finest and having play-pretend tea parties with our dolls and teddies.

If you need a break from being an adult — if only for an afternoon — then head to the Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney for a high tea that will far exceed the toddler tea parties of yesteryear.

Throwing a Barbie High Tea in its lower Lobby Lounge, the Shangri-La will see pastry queen Anna Polyviou (Family Food Fight, MasterChef, Sweet Street cookbooks) take over with an explosion of pink. The executive pastry chef has created a full-on, Barbie-themed tea party, complete with rainbow and bubble gum desserts, decorations galore and all the childhood nostalgia you could ask for.

The usual chic surrounds have been transformed into a Barbie world. There'll even be a photo wall of 'Barbie through the years' — the girl's been around a while.

For $65 a pop, you'll be munching on fairy bread cake with bubble gum and fruit loops, rainbow trifles, vanilla creme and fruit salad, macarons, apple pastries, rhubarb jelly and cinnamon crumble — all tidily arranged on towers. And it wouldn't be a tea party without butter milk scones with clotted cream and strawberries, naturally.

For savoury treats, expect sushi, sausage rolls, egg and lettuce wraps and roast chicken finger sandwiches. Of course, endless pots of tea are part of the deal, plus coffee for those looking for something a little stronger.

Running until July 28, Barbie High Tea has three daily sittings — 11am–12.45pm, 1.15–3pm and 3.30–5.15pm — so you can pop in for a cuppa throughout the day.

Just try to keep Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' out of your head while you eat your way down memory lane.

Barbie High Tea will be available in the Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney's lower Lobby Lounge from July 5–28. Sittings are 11am–12.45pm, 1.15–3pm and 3.30–5.15pm every day. Bookings can be made here.