We stopped here as a shore excursion during our cruise. The staff were all very kind and welcoming. The food was pretty tasty. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the egg salad on rye (I’ve always had rye on my do not eat list). There was a little bit of disorganization and chaos, but that didn’t take away from the experience too much. I would love to go back again sometime!
Disclaimer: this was my first time going to a high tea place.Atmosphere: The garden outside and the establishment itself was very cute. There was patio seating overlooking the gardens outside and intimate indoor seating inside. A lot of natural light shines in through the large windows.Service: the servers were very polite, attentive, and wore masks for diners' safety. The teapots, teacups, and plates were so cute and fancy! The teacups weren't very comfortable to drink from, but I felt stylish regardless.Tea: the tea selection was small, with 3 black teas, 3 herbal teas, and 3 green teas represented. I got to try 4 teas with my party and loved all of them. Despite not being a big tea drinker (usually coffee instead), I drank about 12 teacups' worth. They offered cream and sugar, but they were seriously better without. I was impressed.Food: there were 3 tea service choices - high tea ($65), afternoon tea ($54), elevenses ($28). The pricing is a bit confusing, but each selection comes with a set of food that is proportioned down to feed one person. You get more food with each higher tier, but there is 95% overlap so you more or less get everything of a lower tier by ordering a higher tier. I will post my short impressions of the food below, but in summary, their strengths were in the puff and butter pastries and weakness was in their desserts, which were much too sweet (like American dessert sweet). I don't know if this is normal, but I did not like most of the dessert, even with bitter tea.Food review:-Salmon blini: the caviar tasted like tobiko, the crème fraiche was fatty and delicious. The rye pancake was very rye-y in flavor and delicious. Although it was good with the salmon, I recommend trying it on its own.-Cucumber sandwich: tasted like a Japanese convenience store sandwich (which isn't ab insult, just by opinion)-egg salad sandwich: also tasted like a Japanese convenience store sandwich-Lamb sausage pastry - tasted like curried lamb with bread, or like a schwarma or doner kebab with pita. Very interesting.-Chicken brioche: tasted like turmeric powder and chicken mixed together, but not cooked together. I was not impressed.-mushroom and bechamel vol au vent: actually tasted more like an asparagus gruyere pastry. Subtle yet savory from the cheese/bechamel. The asparagus(?) was nice. It was delightfully flaky.-Savory egg tart (mini quiche): notes of mint and asparagus!-ham and cheddar mini croissant - delicious, but the cheese kind of tasted like Swiss cheese. The croissant was great!-Salmon profiterole- delicious choux! Salmon was good, too.-Scones - they were basically biscuits. Before this, I thought scones were supposed to be dry. Their scones were filling and really nice with their butter/clotted cream, jam, and tea!---desserts----Lemon curd tart - really sweet cookie and curd. The shortbread could have been baked longer. Very sugary.-Chocolate ganache thing - tasted like a moist brownie.-Macaron - one of them exploded when I put my knife into it. Very hard, sweet, and tacky on the teeth. Terrible. But the other one tasted like a proper macaron with the right texture. Not sure what was wrong with the first...-Panna cotta - tasted like custard. Pretty good, but sweet.-Creme brûlee - nice ginger flavor! Very, very sweet, though.-Date, fig, and walnut? with cinnamon in pastry: Great puff pastry. Nice sweetness. One of the best desserts they had. Went well with tea.-Raspberry mousse in chocolate tulip cup: Good raspberry flavor, but a tad sweet, despite the tartness cutting the sugar. The chocolate tasted like candy - yuck.-Strawberry or raspberry cream in a cream puff: tasted like it was artificially flavored filling.-Lavendar sugar cookie or shortbread. Very, very hard. Too sweet but aromatic.Overall, I enjoyed the experience itself but would not mind not doing high tea again if they are all like this. I thought it was pricey for the food quality, but maybe people don't do these for the food? 3/5 - was not my cup of tea (haha) but may be yours if you like high tea.
A beautiful and elegant experience. Make this place your top tea-time and garden walk visit when in Victoria ?☕️??
My wife and I stepped in the teahouse at 11am sharp. This is a very nice teahouse, quiet with a beautiful view of the well maintained garden. There are only two 2-people tables right next to the big window. Since we had the first seating, we were lucky to be seated at one of the two tables.High Tea has more items than Afternoon Tea and some items on the Afternoon Tea menu are not on the High Tea menu. So we ordered one of each to cover the widest selection..All items are freshly made at the Teahouse. One spice even come from their own garden. There are wide selections of the tea too. We enjoyed so much on everything presented.There's a small giftshop.The garden itself, separately managed from the Teahouse, is all run by volunteers. We were told that this is the prime time with a lot of flowers blooming. Gardener is trying to extend the season with flowers bloom later of the year.Oh, there's a guest book on the table right outside the dinning room. Don't forget to sigh it.
I came to the Garden for Mother’s Day Tea to only realize that my mom could only have one item on the menu because she has recently discovered that she can’t have any dairy products. A few other things did not go as planned so I wrote an email to the owner and she called me back to discuss what happened. She asked me what she could do to make things right and agreed to what I suggested. She then went above and beyond to invite us back. I was very impressed with how she wanted us to have a good experience and was more interested in making things right. The owner should be commended on putting the customer experience first. I made some mistakes not checking ahead of time what was on the menu but the owner put a smile back on my face stating that if they are given enough warning in the future they can make a seasonal salad for my mom so she can enjoy the Teahouse experience like everyone else.
Amazing gluten free scones
Today was Mothering Sunday in Britain and so we arranged an outing with my Mum for afternoon tea. The venue was lovely, the service was great and we enjoyed the great selection of teas from Silk Road as well. I had a gluten free afternoon tea and found it to be equally as lovely as my family’s who were having regular afternoon teas. After lunch we walked around the guidance and enjoyed all the spring growth and flowers that were peeking up everywhere. The ponds and paths and mature trees were beautiful to explore. It is lovely to see such well-established and well cared for gardens open for public enjoyment and appreciation.
We return to Abkhazi Gardens for their Tearoom yearly. We find that the value is excellent and everything is delicious! Show up early to get a lovely window seat that overlooks their gardens.
Ordered the “elevenses” and their black tea. Seemed pretty expensive for what we got, except it turned out that every item on the plate was absolutely exquisite. I’ve had tea at the Empress, and also at Fortnum and Mason in London, and what we were served at Abkhazi Gardens was the best of those three. Beautiful view, perfect service, and food that is being prepared by someone with outstanding talent and skill. Highly recommended.
We visited this place for a Royal High Tea experience. It was a very busy Lunch Time with one server only, who was very sweet. Fine china was nice, the interior of the dining room was nice too, it had big windows with the views of a beautiful garden, lots of history beside the name of the original owner Prince Abkhazi. Food was served on a traditional three-tiered stand. Everything looked good. A buckwheat "blin" (crepe) was super tiny though. In Georgian culture, original culture for Prince Abkhazi, blin can't be as tiny or it is not called a "blin", it's called "oladik" (pan cake). Still there was a bit of a black caviar on it, very impressive!!! Despite Royal High Tea's beautiful presentation and the Teahouse being located in the nicest garden, I still believe that it's overpriced. So, I would suggest a visit to the Teahouse for lunch only. And the Garden deserves your full attention too :-)