December 2024

Here’s a fancy pants afternoon tea review in Chicago!

The good, the bad, the ugly, the yummy, of afternoon tea, chicago tea tour second stop of 2!

Our second tea time was at the most recommended Chicago venue: The DRAKE Hotel. Thank you to the 55 people who sponsored this tea tour!  It was actually hard to get reservations at some of the other suggested high end venues like The Peninsula and London House which had no tables the weekend we went to Chicago. And The Langham price scared me away very quickly; also it was pre-pay. So The Drake was the one high end tea venue we hit during this Chicago tea tour.  Let’s get into this review.

Starting with the good - this entire experience was GOOD.  The top 4 GOOD things were:

1. We were luckily given an amazing table right beside the fountain like some type of VIP guest or something.  Seriously though, it appeared that all or most of the tables for two guests were by this fountain so lucky us. This venue was huge and they run their tea for hours and hours serving hundreds of people per day.  I was in awe at the size. Our reso was a 5pm!

2. The food here was endless or appeared to be endless. I’ll speak more about this but I have never been to a tea where the food is refillable. I know there are some high end places in the UK where food is refillable but this is the first tea I’ve attended where that’s offered.

3. Our server was amazing. Shout out to “Azmir” who took such good care of us.

4. My tea guest was tickled pink that there was a harpist AND carolers during our tea time. You do pay extra on caroler days but my tea guest was so thrilled it made it even more special for us.

Let’s talk food and tea!  My friend chose “Sugar Plum Fairy” seasonal tea and she liked it.  I chose earl grey and it was also good; a standard earl grey. 

The food menu was clearly described online when booking, and on the table. It was divided by what they called a warm TEIR where one scone per guest was sitting beside a tea cake and a pecan tart.  Then there was a savory tier and the pastry plate.  Starting with the savoury tier… b/c I didn’t want salmon our server asked what I wanted to replace it with, such as the roasted veggie wrap from the vegetarian menu or the turkey and cheese from the children’s menu.  I hesitated b/c they both sounded good and the server said he’d bring both.  Not only did he bring both but we also got the biscoff and jam sammy from the children’s menu. Needless to say there were ample savoury sandwiches and we could’ve even had more than this. This is what the salmon sandwich looked like from my tea guest’s plate. She said it was yummy with a sweet and sour apple compote on top which she enjoyed.  All the sandwiches I ate tasted very good. All were on different breads with good fillings so I was very happy with that. A couple of the breads were a bit dried out (the biscoff one for example) but this was just so much food it wasn’t a big deal. The turkey roll, the roasted veggie, and the turkey baguette were my favourite savory bites but everything was good.

After our savouries we hit the warm tier (which wasn’t warm any more by the time we got to it). We each got a scone, a tea cake, and a pecan tart. The scone was served with a shared pot of cream, raspberry jam, and lemon curd. The cream had a vanilla taste so wasn’t proper authentic but it tasted good. The scone had a unenjoyable after-taste for me…. I remember that after taste with scones in Florida. Something in the water? I dunno but this scone had a weird after taste for both of us. The texture of the scone was good though. Our server of course offered us more scones so you can get more than the one that is served to you. We declined more scones. The other two sweet items on this tier were both good; especially the pecan tart. Canadians do love a good pecan butter tart!

For sweets, we each got a canele, a chocolate ganache cake, a macaron, and a raspberry entrement cake. The variety on these sweets was great; colours, shapes, flavours all well done. The chocolate ganache cake was by far the best part of the pastry tier for both of us. It was so creamy and absolutely decadent!  While I love the effort of the canele, unfortunately this wasn’t the correct interior.  A canele should have a baked custard interior with little holes and this was a very dense cake so that didn’t do it for me. The entrement cake was fine. The crispy chocolate bottom was great. I am not a fan of gelatin desserts but if you are, this would be a good one for you.  And macarons are a waste for me so I put that on my tea friend’s plate b/c I am not a fan of these airy cookies. I wish we had tummy space for more sweets b/c I would have loved more chocolate ganache but alas, we didn’t even finish what we were given so we didn’t ask for more. But we could have! Which was pretty cool. You’d never leave this tea hungry!

Okay, so food definitely part of The Good here!

The bad - Besides a high price tag and challenges getting a reservation b/c it was so full, there was nothing bad here. On this day at this time, our tea cost $82 per person USD which is $115 CAD before tax and gratuity. So yes, an expensive tea time but definitely a holiday experience worth experiencing so I can’t even really call it a true bad aspect. This was actually less expensive than some of the other high end options I mentioned at the beginning.  It’s hard to get a reservation here b/c people obviously feel it’s worth it. If I was local I could see making this tea time an annual holiday tradition.

Ugly - nothing here was ugly. 

And the yummy - ALLLLL the savouries, the entire tier! and the chocolate ganache cake took the yummy bites for us! 

Even though the scone and accompaniments were not up to my taste standard, this afternoon tea was a great experience so my queen of afternoon tea rating has to be 5 out of 5. I cannot give it any less since the venue was very nice, the service was impeccable, and the food was ample, varied, and there were more really yummy bites than not.  I was pleasantly surprised and so glad I made the effort to get a table at the Drake. Thanks again to those who donated funds to this tea experience; the next tea tour options are on the link if you care to review the options to donate!