Anyone who believes afternoon tea is a stuffy, doily-laced affair has never experienced it at the Windsor Arms. The Yorkville hotel has been serving afternoon tea since 1927, but history and convention have not kept the practice stuck in the past. We swing by the elegant French-style tea room for the unconventional “twilight” tea seating ($45), available from Thursday to Sunday at 6 p.m., which is complemented by a glass of sherry or flute of sparkling wine. Join us as we sink into our upholstered seats, pinkies high, and enjoy one of Toronto’s truly unique eating experiences.
Windsor Arms Hotel, 18 St. Thomas St. (at Bloor St. W.), 416-971-9666, windsorarmshotel.com.
The meal begins with a fine china pot in which one of the many premium loose-leaf tea blends is steeping. Choices range from the traditional to the exotic, including the hotel’s private blend of ceylon, nilgiris and assam, earl grey with roses, Eve’s Temptation (apples and mango) and Tibetan Tiger (vanilla, chocolate, caramel and butterscotch).
Our three-tiered plate stand comes with all the traditional goods, including fresh scones, a stunning selection of gourmet finger sandwiches, an array of petits fours and warm goat cheese tarts that hide a sweet caramelized-shallot centre.
These tea sandwiches have been reinvented as maki-style rolls. Dainty, crustless and far from boring, the lox version is gussied up with a dollop of sour cream, briny droplets of salmon roe and a twirl of light-bodied oven-roasted-tomato cream cheese. Vegetarians would approve of the asparagus roll—a green spear wrapped in moist white bread along with thin cucumber slices and chive cream cheese—but we favoured the citrus-infused grilled chicken, topped with a brunoise of tomatoes and chives.
These fluffy lemon-raisin scones are surprisingly filling. Perhaps our own more-than-generous addition of sweet preserves and cool devon cream had something to do with the resulting heaviness.
Varieties of petits fours include an airy lemon meringue tart, a denser slice of dulce de leche cheesecake and a fresh berry tartlet. Handcrafted and delicate, they are almost too pretty to eat. Almost.
Chocoholics can rejoice in the multi-layered mocha meringue cake, the rich and elegant chocolate truffles and the triple-layer pistachio buttercream cake that comes topped with a chocolate cigar.
, available from Thursday to Sunday at 6 p.m., which is complemented by a glass of sherry or flute of sparkling wine. Join us as we sink into our upholstered seats, pinkies high, and enjoy one of Toronto’s truly unique eating experiences.
Windsor Arms Hotel, 18 St. Thomas St. (at Bloor St. W.), 416-971-9666, windsorarmshotel.com.
[gallery columns="7"]
){kind=link}
“The Yorkville hotel has been serving high tea since 1927…”
No, actually they haven’t, but you could probably get afternoon tea there.
Culture Vulture: Well observed. Consider the story updated.
Having just enjoyed high tea at the Windsor Arms, I can say that this entry is suitably fit in the “food porn” category.
The service was attentive, and the ambiance, formal without stuffiness. The airy room, tables clad with crisp linens lent an aura of bygone formality. Needless to say, as twentysomething “working wives” taking the time out of our usual semi-professional drudgery-we wondered who our midday tea room companions were. Two ladies conversing in loud Cantonese made us feel more at home, as did the gracious servers.
Tea selections were of fine quality, although I could not get a straight answer as to whether or not my “dessert tea” was infused with aroma, or actually contained the curious “chocolate, vanilla, and butterscotch” described in the menu. Tea was served with a strainer, which unfortunately did not adequately catch the rooibos bits (which the menu also neglected to mention–I have a hatred of rooibos) floating in my tea. This was a minor annoyance in the pristine experience of high tea, but considering that this pampered ritual features, well, tea, I suppose this could have been properly averted by a finer strainer.
Desserts were beautiful, but unfortunately, not consistently good. A small almond-crusted tartelet topped with buttercream icing, in the shape of a flower, tasted dry and a wee bit too crumbly. Its purple dye put off at least one of my other dining companions. Meringue filling was gummy, and not adequately citrusy.
Although gastronomically spotty, overall, the Windsor Arms was a beautiful experience of the highness of tea. If I was a lady who lunched, I’d indulge more often.