In 1943, British intelligence planted a corpse off the Spanish coast and changed the course of World War II. Eighty-three years later, you can eat a cake inspired by it.
Across from Buckingham Palace, Raffles London at the OWO has partnered with the West End musical Operation Mincemeat, which immortalizes the real-life episode, to launch an afternoon tea built around British espionage. Trough next January, guests can dine in the Drawing Room inside the city’s former Old War Office, once home to Britain’s Ministry of Defence. During WWII, it was there that special operations agents were briefed, and MI9 was formed to help fugitive prisoners of war escape back to Britain.
The 1943 maneuver itself was breathtaking in its audacity: a floating officer washed ashore in Spain, planted with documents that constructed a false British identity—all to convince Nazi Germany that the Allied invasion was headed for Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily. The German high command took the bait, and the rest is both textbook and Olivier Award-winning West End (and Broadway) history.
At Raffles, five cakes depict the plot points of the operation: a coffee and barley malt briefcase for the secret documents, a submarine filled with Spanish turrón for the coastline where the officer first appeared, and a love letter made from Scottish shortbread for the officer’s fictional fiancée. A propeller cake honors the fabricated plane crash, while a rotary telephone pastry nods to the intelligence rooms where the elaborate scheme was pieced together. The combined effect is nothing short of momentous.
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