July 2025

The savoury tier showing here was soooo strong! The Good, the bad, the ugly, and the yummy of afternoon tea, Markham edition. We recently had afternoon tea for two guests at Essence of Unionville which is the restaurant inside the Hilton Hotel in Markham Ontario Canada.

Beginning, as we do, with the good. The savouries here were good, better than good; they were in fact, great! The savoury plates come out after your tea on their own (with the scones and sweets following later). A ROBOT delivered our savoury plates to our table; I haven’t had a robot server at Afternoon Tea before; unique touch!  Here, you get to choose 4 sandwiches from 6 options; man I loved this aspect!  This is especially good for non-seafood eaters like myself so I was able to choose all the non-seafood options without having to ask for substitutions. My tea guest chose the two seafood options which were a salmon croissant and a crab roll and she loved them both A LOT. The other 4 savouries, which I chose were the Egg & Truffle, a Striploin with Curried Mayo, a Brie on cranberry loaf and Coronation Chicken. These savouries were all good. The brie on cranberry bread was steller. I LOVED the large slice of cheese and the sweet notes of the cranberry bread (which had been slightly toasted), it was on point. The truffle egg salad was really tasty too. The bread on this one was quite dry for both of us but the egg salad was nicely mixed and a good ratio of bread to egg. The truffle flavour was certainly present without being overwhelming; I enjoyed this one too.  The beef sandwich was good; I liked the little balsamic vinegar balls sitting on top; a very unique flavour pop.  The coronation chicken salad was my least favourite; although I could taste the apricot listed in the menu, there was too much raw onion flavour for my liking. The onions were tiny so that was good but the flavour was still overpowering for me. On the whole, the ability to choose one’s savouries from a list and the flavour combinations being served were excellent. We were both delighted by the savouries here! 5 out of 5 on this tier for sure!

The tea being served here is the Sloane brand of tea -which you’ve now seen at SO many Ontario tea rooms (frankly, I’m tired of seeing it). We both chose Earl Grey and I am glad I chose this one instead of heavenly cream today.  Continuing on with the good - we loved the tableware - the delicate design on the tea cups, tea pots, and tiered plate was gorgeous! We were seated by the window so it was very nice looking out and seeing the greenery from the hotel garden. Our service was also excellent; shout out to Barbara! She provided us a very nicely paced, and enjoyable tea service; thank you Barbara!

The bad and the ugly - nothing here was bad nor ugly.  There was nothing wrong with the sweets but since I don’t want to put them under the yummy section, I will tell you about them here. Each guest received 4 sweets: a pistachio cannoli, a Raspberry canelé, strawberry panna cotta, and a Chocolate cake. I enjoyed the strawberry pearls on top of the panna cotta as they provided a neat juicy pop in the mouth. Panna cotta is not my favourite texture so this tasted only OK for me. My tea guest enjoyed hers more. The chocolate cake was a bit of a disappointment; it looked better than it tasted. The bottom layer of cake was quite dry and the middle layers didn’t really taste like much. I think a rich ganache would have improved this sweet and not having a dry cake bottom, of course. The raspberry canele or canele wasn’t great for either of us. It was kinda dry; my tea guest’s canele had a very dark almost burnt bottom (which would have been the top while baking). This just isn’t the texture or flavour I’m expecting when eating this dessert. This is the 3rd canele I think I’ve been served at afternoon tea and while I always appreciate the effort that goes into making these, they always miss the mark for me. Maybe it’s me and not them… question mark? And finally the pistachio cannoli was a nice crisp bite to this sweet offering. The cream inside was a nice consistency without being too sweet. We both enjoyed this item but we both agreed it was borderline over fried; not burnt but teetering on that flavour; ya know? Anyway, these sweets were all diverse and we appreciated that but they did not match the level of quality of the savory tier. 

The yummy - Although it wasn’t the best scone of my life - I did enjoy the scone and would call it yummy. Each guest was served one scone and the flavour was cherry although it wasn’t a strong flavour. It was served with shared bowls of strawberry …jelly? and sweetened cream cheese. I also asked for butter, seeing the lack of clotted cream. It was a buttery scone, it was fresh and tasted pretty yummy. The strawberry jelly was an odd texture but I didn’t dislike it. Of course, I was disappointed that proper clotted cream wasn’t served here; it really should be and I felt like maybe they’ll see this video and add it to the offering going forward… pretty please? We all deserve proper clotted cream at an afternoon tea such as this; it would make a real difference. I did ask our server if we hypothetically wanted another scone if it would be permitted and I believe the answer was yes; we could have had a second scone each. So a yummy scone with room for improvement on the accompaniments.

Essence of Unionville serves this tea experience on weekends from 11am until 4pm and you can book it on their website via opentable. The price is a bit surprising at $48 per person. I say surprising b/c hotel teas in larger cities are usually quite a bit more expensive than this so this is a very reasonable price. I would say they could be charging slightly more and serving proper clotted cream and providing a second scone (without having to ask); even up to $55 given the location and this hotel venue. So get yourself here before they see this video and raise their price! Haha. Overall my queen of afternoon tea rating for this experience is 4 out of 5 stars; I was both pleased and surprised by this showing. You probably haven’t been to Essence of Unionville but would you go? Share your impressions in the comments below and as always, please like, subscribe, and follow my channels to help them grow. Thanks for joining us for tea today, tea friends!