Lavendou Edit

Very meh. It’s a restaurant that also does tea. We had a table in the middle of all the other dining tables, not a very tea room feel.

We were told when making reservations that various teas were available and included with the basic tea service but when we arrived we weren’t given a choice other than the house blend black. It was brewed far too strong, more like coffee than tea with bitter coffee undertones to the liquid. When we asked if there was another option the server told us about 3 other blacks but no greens or whites at all. We were also told that a flavor other than the house blend would be an additional $5. We didn’t ask for clarification, but it sounded like that additional money was per person!

At $18, you get what you pay for to a certain extent. There were the standard foods in the standard amounts. Three sandwiches, three sweets, three scones/breads. The banana bread with cream cheese was very good. The mini chocolate eclairs were tasty and very much dark chocolate. The clotted cream wasn’t – it was basically sweet cream instead. The scones were interesting – small dropped scones with not much sweetness to them. Not bad. The sandwiches were on a large crumb artisanal type of bread and were okay.

The service was unimpressive, bordering on lackluster. After we finally got the host’s attention to get new or different tea, it improved somewhat, but it felt like our group of 5 was an imposition on the staff. They were not full when we went and they were just finishing a large tea party in the backroom and some girls were putting up decorations for another tea of about 15 in the front room. Maybe 5 people were just beneath their notice.

You have to try different places – maybe some will be good. We won’t be back to this one. I’m glad it wasn’t more expensive than it was.