A sequential afternoon tea on the 75th floor of Merdeka 118—where the courses arrive one by one, the teas change as often as you like, and noon becomes three o’clock without you noticing.

On a hazy afternoon, the city’s landmark towers are still clearly visible from the 75th floor of Merdeka 118, but beyond the city centre, everything dissolves into a soft grey blanket. A harpist is plucking Disney classics, her strings drifting into the warm amber light without demanding attention.

Park Lounge is divided into a dining room, a bakery bar, and a library lounge where afternoon tea is served. Bright with natural light through curtain wall windows, a verdant potted tree at its centre, pendant lamps warm overhead; I am always somehow surprised at how busy this restaurant gets.

Afternoon Tea at Park Lounge

I was there on Good Friday for a seasonal edition of Park Lounge’s regular programming. The Afternoon Tea experience here does not arrive on tiers. Instead, it unfolds as a sequence: savouries first, then sorbet, then scones, and finally a dessert trolley wheeled to your table from which you make your selections.

Each course is presented just when the previous one is done. There is an implied freshness to something arriving to the table rather than sitting at room temperature since the moment you were seated, and the afternoon has a rhythm to it that a tiered stand simply cannot replicate. Before we knew it, noon had become nearly three o’clock.

Before anything arrived, Saiful appeared with a custom Harney & Sons box containing fourteen small vials of tea blends, held up one by one for smelling. He introduced them formally, as someone trained to bring a wow factor to the table. But as he continued, it became a genuine conversation. He recommended starting with the house blend and moving toward something floral like the Royal Wedding, or chocolatey like Florence, as the desserts arrived. We followed his advice throughout.

You can try all fourteen teas as they are changeable as many times as you like, with coffee included as well. It is a detail that shapes the whole afternoon more than it might seem.

Savouries to Start

The Easter menu’s amuse arrived as a perfectly uncapped egg in a porcelain egg cup, filled with dense, creamy scrambled eggs imbued with the intense aroma of truffle. Alongside it, two paper-thin shokupan crisps seasoned with flaked sea salt and lemon zest—meant to be loaded and eaten like a crisp. The flavours were excellent; Still, I couldn’t help but wish the shokupan had been left a little thicker and fluffier rather than cracker-thin, but it was a small reservation about an otherwise considered opening.

Two savouries followed together on a porcelain stand. The crispy rice spicy salmon—cubed salmon in spicy mayo atop fried sushi rice—was a capable and generous bite. These have become quite trendy of late, and the execution here was good, though I felt it sat slightly out of sync with the rest of the menu.

It was the white asparagus mimosa tart that brought the afternoon into focus. A wafer-thin tartlet shell of popiah skin held confit white asparagus with the yielding softness of a slow-cooked leek, finished with the saline pop of vendace roe—a signature of the Merdeka Grill kitchen—and a goat cream cheese that was almost sour cream-like in its lactic tang. I thought I’d prefer the salmon but the asparagus definitely stole the afternoon.

The lobster dumpling is a Park Lounge signature, and rightly so. Two rice paper dumplings arrived in a deep bowl, glistening in tom kha foam. Disturbing them revealed streaks of chili oil rising from beneath, intermingling with the coconut broth in a way that was as visually dramatic as it was good to eat. The dumplings were plump, firm, succulent, and generously filled with lobster meat. To encounter dimsum of this quality outside of a dedicated Chinese kitchen is a statement of its own. Simple pleasures, done exactly right.

Sorbet and Scones

I get confused by the sorbet course: sophisticated enough to be a full-fledged dessert, but relegated to a transition between savoury and sweet. A martini glass arrived carrying a green mango sorbet—its appearance a convincing blend of greens and yellows that’s strikingly close to the real thing. I expected something icy and tart. It was creamy, pleasantly sweet, with a mellow acidity and chamomile threaded through as a floral counterpoint. A new flavour pairing I’ll think about again and again.

Scones are the part of afternoon tea I approach with the most indifference. My dining companion, who had been here before, assured me these were her favourites in the city.

Indeed, there scones were not dry, not chalky, fragrant with butter, and firm enough to hold together through the clotted cream, strawberry jam, and orange marmalade. But it were the mini madeleines alongside—dusted with icing sugar—that brightened my eyes the moment I ate one.

Sweets from The Dessert Trolley

The trolley arrived as a three-tiered display behind glass panels—rows of pastel-glazed petit gateaux, composed desserts in double-walled glasses, chocolate confections, and fruit jellies. Dessert trolleys are always fun and whimsical, even in the most luxurious settings, and this one is no exception. What sets it apart: these are not one-bite morsels but full-sized entremets of the kind you would find at a serious standalone patisserie.

Saiful guided us through each one, highlighting the Easter specials. We settled on six between the two of us, plus a small sampling plate of the chocolate bites.

The two Easter specials were spheres designed to resemble eggs. The carrot, pineapple and coconut entremets in pastel orange layered carrot sponge with pineapple compote and coconut chantilly—lighter than it looked, though the pineapple came through more insistently than the carrot, making it feel closer to a pineapple cake.

The strawberry, rose and lychee sphere in pink was fragrant and floral—rose and lychee is a failsafe combination, and the strawberry carried it well. Both were on the sweeter side, though texturally light enough to keep from becoming cloying.

The plant-based vanilla bean cake had been on my list since the hotel opened. Shaped like a vanilla pod, built around Penang vanilla—the same that distinguishes my all-time weakness, the Mille-feuille here—it channels the spirit of Cédric Grolet’s ingredient-led sculptures. The flavour was true and clean. I enjoyed it, though perhaps not quite as much as I had anticipated across several previous visits spent building up to it.

The double cheesecake surprised in the opposite direction: what sounded indulgent arrived as something airy and delicate: a cream cheese mousse encasing a baked cheesecake centre, lifted with a touch of lime. Balanced and simply very good.

The yuzu pearl was my favourite of the afternoon. Intense, bright, and precisely tart, finished with a thin sheet of mango gel draped organically across the surface. The acidity was exactly right, the yuzu uncompromising, and the contrast between the gel and the mousse beneath made it the most considered bite on the trolley.

Last came the non-alcoholic baba with mango and passionfruit—a light sponge soaked in syrup, laced with fresh fruit. My first baba, as it happened, and a genuinely pleasant way to close.

A slow Afternoon Above the City

Before either of us particularly noticed, noon had become nearly three o’clock. Starting at MYR 218+ per person, the Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur afternoon tea is not a casual spend — but across three hours at this altitude, with fourteen teas to navigate, lobster dumplings of a Cantonese kitchen’s calibre, and a dessert trolley of Chef Holger Deh’s patisserie muscle flexing, the afternoon earns what it asks for. The course-by-course format is not incidental to this. It is precisely what allows an afternoon to become an afternoon rather than a meal with a view.

Editor’s tip: The Mille-feuille is not part of the Afternoon Tea experience. Order a slice for the table regardless. Standing recommendation.

Park Lounge
Level 75, Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur
Merdeka Warisan Tower (Merdeka 118)
Presint Merdeka 118,
50118 Kuala Lumpur (Maps)

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