Afternoon Tea At The Victoria Room Tea Salon, Sydney CBD
One morning I was talking to Jill Jones-Evans, owner of the Victoria Room about scones-as you do when you’re a little bit obsessed with food. Mid conversation she casually mentioned how they had a 10 scone long scone menu at their new tea salon in the Westfields. Conversation screeched to a halt, I think I even heard the tyres screeching in the background and people may have looked around in alarm. I spluttered ”A menu with ten scones to choose from??? And you have a new tea room? Why have I not heard of this?” thinking that perhaps my sources at the afternoon tea association would have told me (ok there is no association but I thought I might have heard about it somewhere!) .
The tea salon sits nestled like a porcelain cup amongst tissue paper on the fourth floor “designer’s gallery” in the new Westfields complex. Unlike the dark, exotic and sensuous vibe of the Victoria Room in Darlinghurst, this one is bright and pink like the much younger sister. There are curved white picket fences around the outside, pink velvet covered seats, grass green velvet banquettes and exquisitely pretty china. It’s a candy pop girly dream which is a good thing because my friend Christie has brought along her appropriately attired baby girl Poppy and she loves pink.
Service is very helpful and friendly and when Christie needs a high chair for Poppy the resourceful waitress gets one from another store. The menu features a range of afternoon tea goodies with the three tier stands in standard, sparkling or couture, the latter features a glass of Moet. The noise level is higher than that of a closed off establishment but it isn’t as loud as the food court above it (which truthfully drives me a bit crazy with the noise level).
Poppy thinks everything is an iPad 
There are snacks as well as more substantial meals like terrine, ribbon sandwiches, salads, larger cakes by the slice, ice cream sundaes and the all important list of ten scones baked fresh daily. The scone list is as follows: classic (also comes gluten free); date & orange; spiced cinnamon & raisin; lemon; pistachio & currant; white chocolate & cranberry; dark chocolate chip; lavender; rose; cheddar & thyme and pumpkin & ginger. Scones can also be bought individually and served with butter and conserves or chive butter for the savoury ones. You can also choose the scone that you want to go with your high tea.
Our champagne (part of the couture high tea) comes out first and it’s a generously poured glass of Moet and Chandon. Just the thing to take the edge off a frantic day’s shopping. Or in my case, rushing to and from work meetings! And because I was doing so much running around using taxis and public transport, I brought my new camera-the Pentax Q to test out. It’s a tiny camera that I carry in my bag at all times in case of dining emergency or when I can’t be bothered taking my massive DSLR with me like today and it was a Christmas gift from my amazing Sigma distributor sponsor-thank you! It is the smallest, lightest camera with interchangeable lenses, image sensor, high ISO (6400max), flash, video and is small weighing in at a tiny 334grams with the case. And I absolutely love it! I cannot wait to take it travelling with me.
Couture high tea for one $58
Page 1 of 3 | Next page