December 2024
You know how the service can sometimes make or break a dining experience? Here is an example of that….
The good, the bad, the ugly, the yummy, of afternoon tea, chicago tea tour 3rd stop of 4!
B/c I had such a hard time getting reservations at tea rooms closer to downtown Chicago I booked our 3rd afternoon tea at “High Tea with Gerry” in Long Grove IL, which is a 40 min drive from Millennium Park Chicago or 20 min from Ohare airport as a point of reference.
Starting with the Good.
I am going to classify the scone here as good. It was called an irish raisin scone on the website whatever that means. It was quite bready and I wondered if maybe it was yeast based and had soda water in it? I dunno but it was different than other scones I’ve had. It was kinda almost spongey if that makes sense but I enjoyed the different texture .
It was served with a shared pot of lemon curd, strawberry jam, and I am pretty sure it was real clotted cream. The lemon curd was likely the TIPTREE or Mackays jarred lemon curd as it was not as tangy as a house-made curd might be. Anyway, the scone was the good part of this afternoon tea.
I also would classify the table setting and tea-ware as good here. The antique sugar bowl and milk pitcher and tongs were gorgeous!
In terms of savories, which we ate before our scones, of course. We each received several sandwiches which included cucumber, egg salad, brie, asparagus, turkey and beef. My tea guest who eats seafood received two seafood items (salmon and crab) - which you can see in the middle here. My seafood was swapped out with an additional asparagus and an additional egg salad. The savouries were just fine. Some of the breads were starting to dry out, likely b/c it was served to our table so quickly and we didn’t dive right into eating it. We also found it odd that most of the sandwiches had a leaf of lettuce between the bread and the filling. On my plate only the egg salad didnt have lettuce. That was a bit odd. I liked the caraway seeds in the turkey sandwich but the egg salad was dry and needed more mayo. Overall, the savouries were fine but nothing to write home about.
For the sweets, we each received a raspberry square, a macaron, a chocolate cup and a petit four. None of these sweets impressed either of us but others, like yourself, may love them. The chocolate cup was a type of ganache and tasted pretty good but my tea friend warned me, thankfully, to remove the lavender buds from the top before eating it. I am not sure who suggested that lavender bubs on top of chocolate or cream would be a nice combination for most guests. The sweets were likely passable for most people but didn’t impress me. So overall, the food was very mediocre for me.
Moving onto the bad. I have several aspects here so get comfortable! - first, there were no tea options! They were serving a house blend to everyone without even asking. They come around to refill your tea cups so there are no tea pots on the tables. We had to stop them from immediately pouring to ask for a caffeine free version for my tea guest. And I asked for an earl grey tea instead of their house blend. After a bit of fluster they served us some tea. AND their tea strainer DID NOT strain out of the tea leaves. In the cup of tea I drank there were mucho tea leaves in the cup. That’s not acceptable.
Then for our second cups of tea we were served from the same pot even after my tea guest confirmed she was pouring caffeine free. She said yes and then served me from the same tea pot. How can earl grey and caffeine free house blend come from the same tea pot? Impossible. We were busy eating by this time and the servers were very flustered for no good reason so we just let this whole tea fiasco slide but it certainly wasn’t acceptable to have NO tea options and NO proper tea pots that we serve ourselves, especially if you aren’t keeping track of what you’re pouring into people’s cups for them. Nope No and NO!
The second bad aspect was the sense of flurry we felt. When we arrived, before we had even removed our coats and sat down, we were served a glass of water, offered a mimosa or an egg nog and then an amuse bouche soup was presented. Again, we had barely sat down. Then the flurry of tea activity already described and somewhere in the middle of all that our food was delivered in hurried fashion. So within 5 minutes of walking in the door, we were served, water glasses, an egg nog shot, a mini soup, some tea, and all of our food. It was very overwhelming and really unnecessary hurried. I heard the staff remark that they had two tables starting every 30 minutes so I am not sure why all of our service had to be finished within 5 minutes of us walking through the door. It was not great to say the least.
And finally I would remise not to mention that there were scones and scone accompaniments on our table] (and all tables in fact) when we arrived. As I said, we had all of our food and teas within 5 minutes and we were delivered a second plate of scones and so I started taking my videos etc.. Once I had just finished all the tablescape shots, the owner realized we had been brought an additional plate with two scones to which I guess we were not entitled, and she took it away. So in fact, we were only meant to have one scone each, or one plate of scones. So I had to re-do all the shots again with just one plate of scones. Again, it was kind of awkward having her take food OFF our table in a hurried way. What if I had touched those to move them around when taking photos and videos? It was off putting and affected our experience. So overall, the service ON the day we went was definitely BAD. It might have been a bad day for them but I can only speak to the day and time and experience we had on this specific day.
The ugly - nothing was ugly here. I liked the venue - the exterior was cute and the little town where it is has some nice shops to visit while you are there. The interior is nice and the table was well adorned. So it wasn’t ugly.
For the yummy. - besides the scone, we both enjoyed the amuse bouche roasted red pepper and tomato soup. The chocolate ganache once you removed the lavender buds also tasted pretty good.
This afternoon tea costs $60 USD per person which is about $84 CAD per person. I would say this is priced quite a bit higher than what it should be. This tea should be priced at $40 USD maximum; $60 is quite over priced. Especially since this tea room is in a small town and not in the city; these prices do not make sense for the quality of food being served. Or maybe the demographics of this little town is full of rich people so that would match with the going rate here.
But that’s my opinion based on all these teas I’ve attended on this continent of north america. If you’re near here you should give it a whirl and see for yourself. I hope you receive a calm and enjoyable service by the staff on the day you go. Based on my WHOLE experience food and service, on this date, my queen of afternoon tea rating is 2 out of 5 stars. Savouries and sweets could be better, provide tea options to guests, and Ill take that second scone and calmer service by staff please!
