With its latest high-concept afternoon tea, the Maybourne Hotel Beverly Hills is drawing upon celebrity culture and haute couture to create a perfectly Tiktok-able travel experience. Robbie Hodges reports

In 2025, what is afternoon tea if not a content opportunity? Look no further than the White Lotus-themed takeover at Four Seasons, or the Rosewood London’s latest Art Afternoon Tea for proof. With its new Pret-a-Portea offering, the Maybourne Beverly Hills hopes to compete with the best of them.

The Pret-a-Portea concept itself – high-fashion items rendered in sugar and flour – is something of hospitality legend. Since 2005, the Maybourne’s London sibling hotel the Berkeley has been serving up dainty, fashionable confections and high-end teas under the same name, to great success.

Every six months the Berkeley updates its own Pret-a-Portea menu to keep pace with the fads du jour, having translated Nicholas Kirkwood stilettos, Gucci kimonos and even Moschino’s legendary McDonald’s happy meal mag into cakes and cookies in its time. For Pret-a-Portea’s transatlantic debut, the Maybourne is taking a distinctly California-style approach.

Rather than partner with designers, executive pastry chef Brooke Martin has developed a selection of eight treats in homage to some of the most widely circulated red carpet looks to grace Hollywood in recent decades.

Before the celebrity sightings begin, the hotel invites guests to stage their own red-carpet moment by pausing for a snap in the red carpet-lined entrance to the Terrace Tea Room and plumping for a tea or glass of fizz.

Then comes the patisserie, which is as surreal as one might expect. Only those fed on a rich diet of TMZ are likely to identify the garments and their respective wearers without muddling through the accompanying menu.

For example, one shoe-shaped biscuit dressed with pink royal icing is a nod to the Christian Louboutin ankle wrap sandals worn by Taylor Swift at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Another, a strawberry mousse with a lychee gelée centred on lemon shortbread, is an evocation of Zendaya’s Valentino gown from the 2023 SAG Awards.

The celebrity-agnostic can perhaps hazard a guess for some of the others. A pavlova with whipped passion fruit ganache in the shape of a swan is a marvellous conjuring of Bjork’s now much-aped swan dress from the 2001 Academy Awards. And then there’s a pillow of coconut mousse from which billowing sheets of "mango glass" protrude along with a cheeky leg – a Jennifer Lopez Versace moment, of course.

Across the menu, no details have been spared. Each Billy Porter-style cloak that wafts out of the kitchen is finished with four hand-drawn chocolate feathers. Each of Lupita Nyongyo’s white chocolate pearls are hand-piped, no less.

While the designer delicacies steal the show, a classic selection of tea sandwiches and scones are served alongside the usual offering of vintage champagnes and tea blends imported by Rare Tea Company in London.

Pret-a-Portea: The Red Carpet Collection will be served Friday through Sunday, with prices ranging from US$65 per child and US$165 per adult.