From tea at The Ritz to corner shop cake: Claire Ptak shares her Hierarchy of Pleasures

• Tea at The Ritz
  I come from California and will always associate England with tea. The Ritz is a magical experience, having all these little things brought to you, especially if your seven-year-old daughter is with you. The tea itself is hotel cooking and not the most “flavour-forward”, but there’s real skill to how it’s executed.

• Chocolate, hazelnut, espresso cake at River Cafe
  River Cafe was one of the places that brought me to London. It’s still somewhere I’ve really got to save up for (or get invited to by a rich friend). This cake is the type of flourless chocolate cake that’s usually made with almonds but it’s made with hazelnuts instead and the espresso, which is usually used in chocolate cake to make it more rich, is there as a full-front flavour.

• Jeremy Lee’s desserts at Quo Vadis
  I don’t know if he’ll like me advertising this but you can go to Quo Vadis in Soho and just get dessert, particularly if you’re happy to sit out on the pavement at around 5.30pm. Jeremy has this confidence to totally gild the lily with his desserts, like his “tumbles”, which are a sort of pavlova with jam, cream, custard and ice cream.

• Cornbread croissant at Toad Bakery
  This list is mostly sweet, but I love savoury pastries too. Toad Bakery in Camberwell is far from where I live, and it had a 45-minute queue when I went to check it out. But I can’t stop thinking about the cornbread croissant I had there, with a jalapeño on it and polenta filling. What they’re doing is so inventive and different.

• Angel Cake from the corner shop
  I love plain sponge like angel cake — pink and yellow sponge with a little jam. In corner shops you can get a very cheap unbranded version that comes from a cash and carry. Somehow, whatever they put in it to extend its shelf life really adds to its allure. You can’t recreate the texture with butter.

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