London’s newest afternoon tea is the city’s most delicious secret

Raffles London at the OWO is located in the restored Old War Office building in Whitehall (Picture: Raffles London)

There’s a leather briefcase in front of me marked ‘Classified,’ sitting alongside the propeller of a plane, a mini submarine and an old military-style telephone.

But these aren’t artefacts, they’re delicious cakes designed to represent key elements of the top secret World War II mission Operation Mincemeat, which has recently become an award-winning West End musical.

This cunning plot, which helped turn the war in Britain’s favour, was devised by spies in a basement room beneath the panelled drawing room in Churchill’s Old War Office, where today, I’m drooling over my plate.

To get Hitler’s 100,000 troops of...