A couple of weeks ago, I met my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew for afternoon tea at The Windsor Arms in Trono. The Windsor Arms has an upscale, British aristocracy-type, reputation, and its afternoon teas are reasonably well-reviewed, which is why we selected them for our get-together.
Their afternoon tea is served in two rooms off to the side near the front of the hotel. As I recall, all the seating is at high, dining-height tables. We were given our choice of where to sit, and so we selected a corner with comfortable armchairs and plenty of elbow room. Unfortunately, shortly after we were seated, we were joined in the same room by what can only be described as two huge gaggles of women out for afternoon tea, clearly most of them for their first encounter with such an event. The noise was at times deafening and often made quiet, pleasant conversation a trial.
The Windsor Arms has a fairly broad selection of tea blends. I think we all enjoyed our individual selections pretty much, though my nephew was less than enthusiastic about his Earl Grey, asserting that he has had much better Earl Grey tea elsewhere. I ordered Lapsang Souchong tea, but learned that it was possible to get this variety only in a blend called "Russian Caravan", so I tried it. The Lapsang Souchong tea flavour dominated the blend, much to my delight, and so I was quite pleased with having made that choice. I liked it, but my sister and my nephew both turned up their noses at its aroma. I have come to accept that Lapsang Souchong is not everybody's cup of tea.
Tea service, per se, at The Windsor Arms was minimal. The waiters brought the teapots (loose tea already in the pots of water) and china. We poured our own tea, using the strainers provided. Everything looked very nice and, despite the nattering neighbours, the entire setting was very pleasant. From time-to-time, the servers offered more hot water, but they never offered extra cups so that we might sample each others' tea selections. Nor did they seem to have any idea that tea leaves left sitting in a pot might well become very bitter after a half hour or so. At one point when a server was offering extra hot water, I mentioned that my tea was becoming quite bitter and requested a new pot. Fortunately he seemed to understand perfectly and immediately brought a fresh pot. But I shouldn't have had to ask.
Because it was my sister's birthday, we celebrated by ordering the complete afternoon tea: for an extra five dollars each, we received our choice of sparkling wine or sherry. The bubbly was medium dry and better than Bright's President (el cheapo rot-gut); I put it on a par with Henckel. My sister had a choice of sherries, and thought the one she selected was fine.
The food is served all at once on the standard three-tiered arrangement: desserts on top, sandwiches in the middle, and scones on the bottom. There were three types of pinwheel/rollup type sandwiches: salmon something, chicken, and veggie/creamcheese something (the full menu is here). They were about 3 cm long and about 3 cm in diameter. We received eight of each type (two apiece) and we all enjoyed them. The bread seemed a tad gooey or chewy, as if maybe it had been undercooked. But we reflected that it reminded us of times in our youth when we used to ball up store-bought white bread to eat it. What I'm trying to say is that I didn't really mind the consistency of the bread, but it was unusual.
The scones were good, so especially was the Devon cream. When that stuff is available, it floors me that anyone would consider serving scones with whipped cream instead. Unfortunately, the jams were served in little jars, had too much pectin, were clearly not homemade, and did not include strawberry. Also, for some inane reason, The Windsor Arms sprinkles their scones with sugar, making them unnecessarily sweeter. But they were still okay.
The desserts were in a very pleasant array on the top tiers (we had two of the three-tiered serving platforms). There were eight different desserts, which meant we had to negotiate over who would eat which ones, but we all agreed they were pleasant.
We were never offered extra servings of any of the food, and indeed we had to ask for extra jam and cream for the scones.
Overall, we had a nice time. On the negative side, we should have been seated in a quiet room; also, the Windsor Arms clearly needs to learn more about how to serve tea (see this, for example, about halfway down: you don't serve tea with the leaves in the pot and let them steep forever!). On the plus side, the ambiance was nice, the sandwiches were interesting and good, and so were the desserts. But I think the highlight for everyone was the Devon cream, which says a great deal about everything else.
My score would be a 3/5. But keep in mind, too, that it was less expensive than afternoon tea at Langdon Hall and was about half the price of afternoon tea in Mayfair.
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For my previous reviews of afternoon teas, please see these links (ranked in order of preference):
These two were superb. Highly recommended:
- The Four Seasons, London, England
- The St. Regis Hotel, Houston, Texas
Those in this next group were okay. I would consider returning to them:
- Claridge's, London, England
- The Dorchester, London, England
- Brown's, London, England
- The Pump Room, Bath
- The Windsor Arms, Toronto, Canada
- The Boathouse, Guelph, Canada
- Langdon Hall, Cambridge, Canada
These next two were judged unacceptable:
- The Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath
- The Queen's Hotel, Portsmouth, England