August 2024
This tea room was recommended by you TikTok. lets see how it scores!
the good, the bad, the ugly, the yummy of afternoon tea. Detroit edition
a couple of days ago we had afternoon tea for two guests at THE WHITNEY in Detroit MI. as always, I'll give you my star rating at the end.
starting with the good aspects.
the good here was the venue. The Whitney is referred to as a fine dining experience inside a mansion. getting here from Windsor Ontario was pretty easy with a $5 parking lot just across the street. on this day they said afternoon tea was being held on the second floor. there were multiple rooms and we were seating by a window. everything was setup very nicely with full linens. the tea menu was on the table and there was a hibiscus herbal infusion "tea" already steeped and waiting for us on the table which the server poured for each us when we were seated. we were offered a mimosa or champagne to start which some folks would certainly enjoy. so i am classifying the venue here as good b/c the mansion was lovely and the table setup was nice too. the service here was also GOOD.
Next the bad -
So there was no tea menu here - as in, you drank the hibiscus tea that was already on your table. This is definitely a bad aspect here - I've never seen it before where you are given NO tea options whatsoever. I was a bit astonished by this so I asked if a black tea was available. I was told they would try to find me one. I was surprised no-one else in the room asked for a different tea. A few minutes later a woman returned with a tea pot for me of earl grey - lucky b/c I do love an earl grey. She washed my tea cup out for me from the hibiscus and the earl grey tea tasted very good. But not having any tea options would be the bad aspect here for me but they were able to accommodate me so that's fine.
I wouldn't say the food here was BAD but it was certainly JUST OK. Let me to tell you about it. The starter was a bowl of 3 strawberries with some creamy mixture. It was a whipped mixture but thicker due to the white chocolate that was added. It wasn't a mousse and it wasn't whipped cream. It was sweet but not too sweet. There was certainly ample cream to cover 3 strawberries. This tasted good but was a weird "starter" for me since it was on the sweet side and in my experience starters are not usually a dessert offering.
Next our tiered plate of savouries and scones was served. each guest received a mozzarella cracker, a brie phyllo Cup, and a devilled egg. Then there were 3 finger sandwiches each. a cucumber sandwich, a chicken salad sandwich, and a salmon. we swapped out the salmon for an extra chicken which is why ours looks like this without the salmon offering. in terms of taste nothing was very good. the chicken salad was okay but it was so sloppy being open face like this I didn't need two of them. The cucumber bread had started to dry out and had crispy edges. I checked to see if my husbands was also starting to dry out and it wasn't fresh either. The cracker had lost its crispy and was soggy. The deviled egg was fine. the phyllo tasted fine to me as well. But overall, the savouries weren't great. one issue here is that everyone starts their tea service at the same time so they have let's say 60 ppl all having each item at the same time which means they set it up catering style. which means that things like breads and crackers will lose their freshness while they are waiting for the teirs to be filled and served. They seem to be able to manage the service side of catering style but the food qualify suffers.
alright, onto the scones. each guest got one cranberry scone and they were served with a shared pot of honey butter and apple sauce. I doled out the portions of each for us since we had to share. I was afraid how this was going to go and if the scones would be fresh or not. I had my husband cut his first so we could investigate how they'd open. It didn't go well crumbling all over the place. Mine went a little bit better but still not ideal breaking into annoying pieces. The butter was fine and I love butter but apple sauce? What the what? i cannot understand why they wouldn't serve jam. It's easy to get and easy to store, it's cheap, and ppl like it. who has apple sauce on scones? my husband said they are trying to be different but that's just too far off script for afternoon tea. And of course, proper clotted cream must be served at afternoon tea and there was none of that insight. Even the cream from the starter strawberries would've been closer to proper. The scone wasn't too dry but it wasn't yummy either, overall, I was not a fan of the scone situation here.
after we finished our tier, we were presented with the dessert plate, one for each of us. we each received a macaron, a coconut pie tart, and a almond coconut chocolate bar. Again, these desserts have been sitting out for awhile - room temp sweets are fine but you can see the chocolate one is pretty melty. Here they are again sitting outside the room on trays waiting to be served.
I am sure if you have been following me for any time you already know what I am going to say about this showing. Right? let's see if you're correct.
The other sweets were fine but no surprise here, virtually the same since they were both coconut flavoured. Don't get me wrong, i love coconut but of all the dessert flavours on the earth why would they serve TWO of the same flavour? I cannot comprehend that.
So overall, the food here wasn't great. Maybe not "bad" per say but definitely not good either.
THE UGLY
Nothing here was ugly. This venue was stunning. The tablescape and food all looked appealing so nothing ugly.
THE Yummy
Nothing I ate here wow'ed me in any way. The best bite was the almond coconut chocolate bar but even it didn't get to stand out and shine b/c it was along side it's coconut pie twin.
this afternoon tea costs $49 USD per person so it's not too outlandish. I'd say you're paying for ambiance and service here. As long as you aren't expecting top notch food or a classic afternoon tea experience, you might enjoy this afternoon tea venue and should give it a whirl if you're in the area.
for me, the queen of afternoon tea, this didn't hit the main markers for me so I am scoring this one at a 2 out of 5 stars. on my youtube score card this tea will be getting a 56% and you can see those details on my youtube channel.
