The Grand by Concerto on the Strand: Cakes, Coffee, and Why I’m Not Sold on Dubai Chocolate

I had not planned to stop here. After Trafalgar Square, the plan was to find a cab back to the hotel and call it a day. Then I crossed the Strand, looked sideways, and saw the cake vitrine. A wall of macarons, gateaux, éclairs, a gingerbread house, and a three-tier wedding cake glowing through the glass on a December evening. I stood there for about thirty seconds before deciding the cab could wait.

This is how I ended up at The Grand by Concerto on the Strand, the Caffè Concerto chain’s flagship Italian café and patisserie. It sits in the Grand Building at 1-3 Strand, looking directly across at Trafalgar Square from the east side. If you have just walked over from the National Gallery or the Norwegian Christmas tree, you are about two minutes away from this door. The lit signage at night reads “The Grand Caffè”. The afternoon tea sign on the pavement says it starts at £36.95. The window display said come in.

The Grand by Concerto on the Strand at a Glance
📍 Location · Grand Building, 1-3 Strand, London WC2N 5EJ. Directly opposite the east side of Trafalgar Square, two minutes from the National Gallery and the Norwegian Christmas tree. Nearest tube: Charing Cross (1 minute) or Embankment (5 minutes).
🏛️ What it is · The architectural flagship of the Caffè Concerto chain — an Italian café and patisserie on the ground floor of the Grand Building. Two-storey dining room with crystal chandeliers, marble tables, dark velvet seating, and one of central London’s most photographed pastry vitrines.
🕐 Hours · Monday–Thursday 7:30 am to 9:30 pm. Friday and Saturday 7:30 am to 11 pm. Sunday 8 am to 9 pm. Last orders typically 30 minutes before close.
🍰 What to order · The strawberry gateau (about £12) — vanilla sponge with fresh strawberries and cream. The Dubai chocolate cake (about £12) is fine but not as good as the menu’s classic patisserie. Cappuccinos are excellent and arrive in the chain’s signature gold-rim porcelain cups.
🫖 Afternoon tea · From £36.95. Includes finger sandwiches, plain and raisin scones with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry jam, mini cakes, and macarons. Prosecco upgrade available. Genuinely good value compared to high-end London hotel teas (£80–£95).
🏗️ The building · The current Grand Building is a 1986–1990 reconstruction by the Sidell Gibson Partnership of the original 1880 Grand Hotel (designed by F. and H. Francis with J.E. Saunders). The façade preserves the Victorian original; the carvings of endangered species above the Northumberland Avenue entrance are by sculptor Barry Baldwin.
💡 Tip · Combine with a visit to Trafalgar Square. Walk over after seeing the Norwegian Christmas tree or the National Gallery, and the Grand by Concerto is two minutes east across the road. The vitrine alone is worth the detour.

The Grand Building and Why It Looks Like It Does

The building itself has a story worth knowing. The Grand Building at 1-3 Strand looks Victorian because most of its façade is a careful preservation of a Victorian original. The site originally held Northumberland House, demolished in 1874 when Northumberland Avenue was cut through to connect Trafalgar Square to the new Victoria Embankment. The Metropolitan Board of Works intended the area as a new luxury hotel district, and three grand hotels went up in the new development: the Hotel Metropole (now the Corinthia London on Whitehall Place), the Hotel Victoria at 8 Northumberland Avenue (now The Grand at Trafalgar Square hotel), and the Grand Hotel at 1-3 Strand.

The original Grand Hotel was built between 1877 and 1881 by the architects F. and H. Francis with J.E. Saunders. It operated as a hotel into the early twentieth century, then closed and was used as offices for various government and commercial tenants. By the 1980s, the stone façade had weathered badly and the building had been damaged by works on the new Jubilee underground line. The original building was demolished in 1986.

The current Grand Building was constructed in its place between 1986 and the early 1990s, designed by the Sidell Gibson Partnership. Because of the prominent position overlooking Trafalgar Square, the new building preserved much of the original 1880 exterior design, which is why it still looks Victorian from the street. The exterior includes new sculptural carvings of endangered animals and human faces added during the rebuild, by the sculptor Barry Baldwin. Inside the new structure is a modern office complex with a large atrium. The Grand by Concerto occupies the ground floor.

A small clarification worth knowing for anyone searching for “The Grand” near Trafalgar Square. There is a separate boutique hotel called The Grand at Trafalgar Square at 8 Northumberland Avenue, two doors down from this building. That hotel occupies a different historic building, originally the Victoria Hotel from 1897, and is unrelated to the café. The “Grand” in The Grand by Concerto refers to the Grand Building at 1-3 Strand, not the hotel at 8 Northumberland Avenue.

You walk in under arched windows that are part of the preserved façade. The interior is bright, two-storey, and full of chandeliers. Dark velvet chairs in yellow and forest green sit at tables with marble tops. The bar runs along one side under a row of enormous chandeliers that look like upside-down glass forests. Cherry blossom trees, artificial but elegant, frame the back of the room. The ceiling has decorative cornices and gold detail. The whole space leans into the idea of a grand European café, the kind of room you walk into expecting to be too dressed-down for. The actual atmosphere, despite the chandeliers and the marble, was relaxed. People in winter coats with shopping bags. Families. Couples. A few business meetings. Nobody dressed up.

The Service: This Is Why I’m Writing About It

I want to talk about the service, because it shaped my whole experience here and it deserves its own section.

The server who took our table was warm without being effusive. He recommended the strawberry gateau when I asked which cake he thought was best. He asked whether I wanted to try the Dubai chocolate cake too if I was curious about the trend, without pushing it. He brought the cakes out unhurried, separated by about ten minutes so neither sat waiting, and the coffees arrived hot. When I mentioned I wanted to take some photos, he immediately offered to let me walk around the room and the pastry cabinet to get the shots I wanted. He said to take my time. When I was finished, he asked whether I wanted help finding a cab and pointed me toward the better corner for one at that time of day.

None of this is exceptional service in the sense of being unusually elaborate. It was something simpler and rarer: attention, warmth, and the absence of the rushing that defines so many central London tourist-area cafés. I was not rushed. I was not pushed. I was treated as someone who wanted to enjoy an afternoon, not as a transaction to be completed in 35 minutes so the table could turn.

I read a fair number of mixed reviews of this place online after the fact, which surprised me. My experience was the opposite of those reviews. I can only assume the service quality varies by shift, which is true of every restaurant on earth. Mine was the good shift, and it made the visit memorable.

What I Ate: The Strawberry Gateau

The strawberry gateau is what the menu describes as a delicate vanilla sponge with fresh strawberries and cream, and that is exactly what it was. Three layers of pale sponge, cream filling between each, glazed strawberries on top, a piped rosette of cream holding the small white “Caffè Concerto” card upright at one end. The sponge was light. The cream was not over-sweetened. The strawberries were fresh enough that you could still see the seeds shining through the glaze. The whole slice was generous without being heavy.

This was the cake the server recommended and it was the right recommendation. It is the kind of dessert that a Caffè Concerto location does well precisely because it is not trying to be trendy. The strawberry gateau is what European patisseries have been making for a century, and when you do it properly with fresh fruit and a light sponge, it does not need a viral TikTok to justify itself. I ate the whole slice. I would order it again.

What I Ate: The Dubai Chocolate Cake

Then there is the Dubai chocolate cake, and this is where I have something to say.

If you have not been paying attention to food trends in the past two years, here is what you need to know. In 2021, a British-Egyptian entrepreneur named Sarah Hamouda founded a chocolate company in Dubai called Fix Dessert Chocolatier with her husband Yezen Alani. Hamouda was pregnant and craving something specific that no commercial chocolate bar provided. So she designed her own, inspired by the Middle Eastern dessert knafeh: a thick Belgian chocolate shell filled with pistachio cream, tahini, and shredded crispy kataifi pastry. The original bar was called “Can’t Get Knafeh of It”. For about two years, the bar was a local Dubai novelty.

Then in December 2023, a Dubai-based food influencer named Maria Vehera posted a TikTok video of herself eating one of the bars. The video accumulated over 120 million views. Dubai chocolate became the food trend of 2024. Lindt launched a version. Godiva launched a version. Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Aldi, and Trader Joe’s all launched their own “Dubai-style” bars. Pistachio supplies in the United States dropped 20 percent between February 2024 and February 2025 because of the demand. Iran exported 40 percent more pistachios to the United Arab Emirates in late 2024 than in the entire previous year. Cafés all over the world started making Dubai-chocolate-flavoured cakes, croissants, ice cream, and lattes.

The cake at The Grand by Concerto is one of those café interpretations. It is not an actual Fix Dessert Chocolatier bar. It is a small round layered cake about the size of a tea cup, with a base of pistachio sponge, a layer of chocolate mousse, more pistachio sponge, more chocolate, topped with chocolate ganache, crushed pistachios, shredded kataifi pastry, and a piped pistachio cream rosette holding the Caffè Concerto card.

Here is my honest verdict. It was fine. The textures were nice. The kataifi pastry on top gave a satisfying crunch. The pistachio sponge was authentic pistachio and not just green colouring. The chocolate was real chocolate. As a piece of patisserie, it was competently made and pleasant to eat.

But I am not sure why people are losing their minds over this.

If you like pistachios, this cake is a pistachio cake with chocolate. If you have ever eaten a pistachio baklava, a pistachio gelato, a pistachio macaron, a pistachio croissant, or a pistachio rocher, you have eaten approximately this flavour combination before. The shredded kataifi pastry adds texture but kataifi has been used in Middle Eastern desserts for centuries. The combination of pistachio, tahini, and chocolate is genuinely good, but it is not a revelation.

I think what happened with Dubai chocolate is the same thing that happens with many viral food trends. A perfectly nice product met a perfect TikTok moment, the algorithm did its work, and a billion people decided they needed to try it. The actual product is fine. It is not transformative. If you are someone who already enjoys pistachio desserts, you will enjoy this cake. If you are someone who has never tried pistachios in a sweet context, the cake might genuinely surprise you. But if you came to this cake expecting your understanding of what chocolate can do to be changed forever, you may leave slightly puzzled.

Between the two cakes I tried, the strawberry gateau was the clear winner. The fresh fruit, the light sponge, the well-balanced cream. Sometimes the trend cake loses to the classic. The classic earned its place over decades for a reason.

The Pastry Cabinet and the Vitrine

Worth pausing in the entryway before you sit down. The pastry cabinet at The Grand by Concerto is genuinely something to look at. The December display I saw included a full architectural gingerbread house with icing snow on the roof, oversized red and white striped candy canes hanging from the ceiling, pink and red mirror baubles, a small hot-air-balloon ornament, and a three-tier white wedding cake at the top of the case. Below, the actual pastries: rows of macarons in every colour, fruit tarts, chocolate gateaux, cheesecakes, opera cakes, and the strawberry and Dubai chocolate cakes I would soon try.

The vitrine from the street is genuinely one of the most photogenic café windows in central London. The whole display is designed to stop you mid-walk, which is exactly what it did to me. The £36.95 afternoon tea sign sits in one corner, the gingerbread house glows in the centre, the wedding cake holds the top, and the rows of cakes line up below. On a December evening with the warm interior lighting visible behind the cakes and the cold blue exterior lights overhead, the whole thing looks like a scene from a Christmas film.

The Bar and the Bigger Caffè Concerto Chain

The bar at The Grand by Concerto is impressive enough to deserve mention. It runs along one wall of the room, with two enormous crystal chandeliers hanging above it, and a tall arched display of bottles behind it. Sparkling wines, cocktail spirits, prosecco, and champagne fill the shelves. The bar is open through the day for cocktails, with full lunch and dinner service from noon. The afternoon tea I came to know about runs from noon to closing.

The Grand by Concerto is the flagship of the Caffè Concerto chain, a London-based Italian-style café group with around twenty locations across central London, including Piccadilly, Covent Garden, Bond Street, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Westfield, and several others. The chain serves Italian-inspired food (pasta, risotto, salads, pizza-adjacent items) alongside the patisserie and afternoon tea offering. The Strand location is the most architecturally grand of the chain, befitting its position in the Grand Building. If you cannot make it to the Strand specifically, the Piccadilly and Covent Garden Piazza locations are also full-service flagships worth knowing about.

Bubbly Tips for Visiting The Grand by Concerto on the Strand

• Time your visit after Trafalgar Square. The Grand is a two-minute walk from the east side of the square. After visiting the Christmas tree, the National Gallery, or the column, this is the natural next stop for a coffee and cake.
• Stop at the vitrine before sitting down. The window display is genuinely beautiful, particularly in December with the Christmas decorations. Spend two minutes looking at it from the street. You will pick out the cake you actually want to order.
• Skip the Dubai chocolate cake if you already like pistachios. Order the strawberry gateau, the chocolate gateau, the tiramisu, or any classic patisserie option instead. The Dubai chocolate cake is fine but not as good as the menu’s actual specialties. If you have never tried pistachio desserts, it is worth a try; if you have, the strawberry is the better choice.
• The afternoon tea starts at £36.95. It includes finger sandwiches, plain and raisin scones, Cornish clotted cream, strawberry jam, mini cakes, and macarons. A prosecco upgrade is available. Compared to high-end London afternoon teas at hotels like the Ritz (around £85), the Goring (around £80), or Claridge’s (around £95), this is genuinely good value for an elegant central London afternoon tea.
• Service quality may vary. My experience was excellent, with warm and attentive service, but online reviews are mixed. If you have a specific occasion in mind, booking ahead and mentioning it never hurts.
• The coffees are excellent. The cappuccinos arrived hot, well-foamed, and in the chain’s signature gold-rim porcelain cups. Order a cappuccino or a latte alongside the cake; the espresso is also good.
• Open late on Friday and Saturday nights. The Grand by Concerto stays open until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, compared to 9:30pm the rest of the week. If you’re looking for a late dessert stop after a theatre show in Covent Garden or the West End, plan around the weekend evenings. The Strand location stays open later than most central London cafés on those nights.
• Combine with the rest of the Strand. After your coffee, the Strand runs east toward Somerset House, Fleet Street, and St Paul’s. Walk west and you are at Trafalgar Square in two minutes. The location is a genuine central London hub.

Final Thoughts

I came in for a coffee and a slice of cake. I left thinking about how a Sarah Hamouda pregnancy craving in Dubai in 2021 became a cake in a London café in 2025 on a Victorian-style building reconstructed in 1986 on the site of an 1880 hotel. The whole chain of cause and effect is mildly absurd. None of it was meant to happen. A woman in Dubai wanted a snack. A TikTok influencer filmed herself eating a chocolate bar. A pastry chef in central London designed a cake to ride the trend. I walked past on a December evening after the Christmas tree and ended up writing about it.

The strawberry cake was better than the Dubai chocolate cake. The service was warm. The room was beautiful. The pastry cabinet glowed through the window on a cold night. None of it was revolutionary. All of it was a good way to spend an afternoon. Sometimes that’s exactly the right thing.

If you are visiting Trafalgar Square in December, walk across to the Strand afterward, look at the vitrine, and decide for yourself. Order the strawberry gateau. Skip the Dubai chocolate unless you have never had pistachios before. Order a cappuccino. Take your time. The cab can wait.

Until next time!

xoxo,
Bubbly 🎈