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If your afternoon plans needed a little more drama, Louis Vuitton just gave you an excuse to linger over tea a bit longer. As of yesterday, the brand’s Fifth Avenue café has rolled out a newly reimagined afternoon tea service—and it’s as polished as you would expect from a label that monograms everything.
Set on the fourth floor of the midtown flagship at 6 East 57th Street, Le Café Louis Vuitton has always embraced what it calls “luxury snacking,” a menu of familiar dishes, reworked with French technique. The new tea service builds on that idea, but pushes it further into full-on occasion territory.
There are two options, both designed by the café’s culinary team, which is led by Executive Chef Kylian Goussot and Executive Pastry Chef Mary George. The first, “A Sweet Escape” ($100 per person), is essentially a dessert showcase: six miniature pastries arranged with surgical precision, plus a standout Marble Gâteau layered with chocolate, vanilla, rum syrup and glossy dark chocolate glaze. There’s also a hazelnut ganache with praline and fleur de sel and a vanilla-forward confection that leans into caramelized milk and custard textures.
If you want something savory to balance things out, “The Exquisite Journey” ($135) adds five small bites to the mix. That includes a truffle-laced croque-monsieur, a tuna taco topped with caviar and ponzu and a vegetable dish with coconut and ginger that tastes like something you might find on a fancy spa’s lunch menu.
Both experiences come with tea, herbal infusions and coffee, natch, and run daily from 11:30am to 5pm—prime hours for people-watching or just taking a mid-shopping spree breather. The café itself doubles as a library-inspired space, lined with more than 600 books and designed to feel like a Parisian salon.
Worth noting: you don’t have to be a Louis Vuitton client to get a table. You do, however, have to be okay with paying Louis Vuitton prices for your pastries—and probably taking at least one photo before you eat them.