Yesterday we went to the Sparta House Tea Room for afternoon tea.
Sparta is a truly quaint little village about 45 minutes south of London, Ontario. It is filled with historic buildings and historic markers describing all of the locations. The history alone makes the village worth a visit. Visiting the Sparta House Tea Room will add to the pleasure.
Disclosure: The Sparta House Tea Room is owned and operated by Ken Roberts, an energetic and ingenious friend I met and worked with while rehearsing for the April-May production of Neville's Island at the Princess Avenue Theatre in St. Thomas. Ken devised many of the gadgets and gizmos that we used on stage during that production. He also played an important role in designing and building the amazing set for our production of that play.
The Tea Room is a restored building that was once an inn, nearly two centuries ago. Despite the high-ish temperatures outside, the tea room was cool and pleasant inside.
There must be several hundred teapots on display around the spacious tea room. They are grouped by themes and (this must take a lot of work!) all seemed to be dust-free. We felt very at ease and very comfortable there.
We started with a glass of wine each. House red for Ms. Eclectic, house white for me. They were fine -- served in small-ish glasses and filled to the top, which I know would offend some wine snobs, but it was just fine with us [and $6/glass is like a gift, compared with most city prices].
When the server brought our wine, we let her know what tea we wanted and, after she asked, let her know that we would be happy to have our food brought at the same time. As usual, I was too hungry; it might have been a good idea to have the food brought later in separate presentations. However, having it all presented together at once certainly was spectacular and definitely added to our enjoyment.
For someone with my experience and eclectic tastes, the tea list is disappointingly short. I pretty much had a choice between Earl Grey and English Blend. There were others, too, though -- maybe as many as ten or twelve. Ms. Eclectic had lemon tea.
One amazing thing about Sparta House is the huge amount of food they provide, especially given the comparatively low price [only $18.95/person; contrast that with maybe $80 - $100 per person in Mayfair]. Here is a photo of the spread they brought us (Unfortunately, I forgot to take the photo until after we had already eaten six of the mini quiches).
That is one heckuva spread! The sandwich platter on the right contained
- 7 mini quiches: egg, cheese, and spinach. All very good.
- 14 sandwich quarters: salmon on brown, egg salad on poppy-seed brown, and ham & cheese with mayo, some on white and a couple on brown. They were all good, fairly standard for Southwestern Ontario, fresh, and tasty. I thought the mayo on the ham & cheese was a tad heavy, but that's just me.
- I don't know how many pinwheels cut from roll-ups. There were tonnes of them under those cucumber slices. Some were turkey, I think, and lots had cream cheese in them, along with tomato bits or green onions. I really liked them.
- a good-sized sausage roll in pastry, cut into 6 convenient bite-sized pieces.
We completely decimated the sandwich platter. Then we moved on to the two-tiered dessert and scone presentation. It included
- Two raisin scones, halved, buttered and topped with whipped cream and strawberries. More about these later.
- Two glorious chocolate fudge-like wedges. These were my favourites of all the desserts.
- Four petite-fours, two chocolate and two white. They were ok, but didn't tickle my fancy. Ms. Eclectic gave 'em a miss.
- Two caramelly coconut wedges. Ms. Eclectic loved them, so I let her have both (I'm not keen on coconut in most baked goods).
- Four mini cream puffs -- delicious.
- Four slices from a custard-filled eclair -- also delicious.
- Four buttered slices of banana nut bread. I had two or three of these, trying to figure out what the flavour was. The server checked for me and assured me they were banana nut bread, but I tasted zero banana flavour. They seemed like a very nice nut bread with some slight unusual additional flavour.
- Four raspberry tarts. We shared one, but were probably too full to enjoy it, and so we left the rest.
- Two frosted cupcakes. We were too full to try them.
- Four small-ish pieces of yellow cake with vanilla and lemon topping. I had one. It was ok, but not spectacular.
- Copious pieces of fruit: strawberry halves, grapes, orange slice quarters.
We were joyously and happily stuffed when we quit (without finishing all the desserts!). We were very happy with our time at the Sparta House Tea Room.
Both Ms. Eclectic and I thought the overall experience was better than afternoon tea at either The Boathouse in Guelph or Hotel Saskatchewan in Regina (see below for my rankings and links to other reviews).
The sandwiches were not super fancy -- not like those in the top-rated places (see below), but they appropriately had the crusts removed and were quite tasty.
The desserts were, for the most part, excellent.
One nice effect is that since they brought out so much food at the beginning, we had no reason to be disappointed that they didn't offer additional sandwiches or scones (extra sandwiches and scones are typically offered in Mayfair and at the St. Regis). We could see from the outset that there was more than enough food for the two of us.
And, bless them, although they do call this "high tea", they also make clear on their website that it is also called a proper afternoon tea. For the distinction, see this.
A side plus: we managed to nose two more deer signs on this expedition.
Here are some suggestions for what I'd like to see to make it closer to a proper afternoon tea:
- Broaden the tea selection. I know it probably doesn't matter in Southwestern Ontario, but offering a broader selection would be nice. And, of course, I would love to see lapsang souchong on the menu.
- Refine the tea presentation. The tea is provided in teabags. For the price I can understand the use of teabags, but loose tea with tea balls or infusers would be nice.
- Pay more attention to the fine points for tea. The tea cozies on the teapots are very nice, but don't leave the teabags in the pots --- bring them on the side, and do offer refills of hot water.
- Scones: I realize this is likely not possible at any reasonable price in a village in Southwestern Ontario , but I really like clotted cream for the scones, not whipped cream. Also, it would be nice if the scones were served separately, fresh, and warm. And some jam (fresh, in small ramekins, please, if you can do this!) would be a welcomed addition.
Clearly these suggestions would likely add to the costs, and I'm not sure most potential customers would be willing to pay more to cover these additional costs.
Most important, though, we stuffed ourselves and had a wonderful time. For my friends in Southwestern Ontario: it is worth the drive to Sparta for afternoon tea at the Sparta House Tea Room. Call ahead to make a reservation if you want to go there for afternoon tea, but they also offer a number of other traditional British menu selections.
The Sparta House Tea Room is a fairly popular place. While we were there, at least 20 other people arrived. The others customers seemed to want either cream tea or other food from the menu. But the afternoon tea was what we went there for, and we didn't regret it.
Afternoon tea for two, wine, taxes, tip: $66 Cdn.
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My previous reviews, ranked in order of preference:
These three were superb. Highly recommended:
- The Four Seasons, London, England
- The St. Regis Hotel, Houston, Texas
- The Lanesborough, London, England
Those in this large middle group ranged from very good to just okay. I would consider returning to them, but those in the upper portion of the list were significantly better than those in the lower portion of this section:
- Claridge's, London, England
- The Dorchester, London, England
- The Ritz, London, England
- Brown's, London, England
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- Scolfe's Tea Room, Boreham Street, England (superb, but not really afternoon tea)
- The Pump Room, Bath, England (also superb, but not really afternoon tea)
- The Windsor Arms, Toronto, Canada
- The Fairmont Pacific Rim, Vancouver, British Columbia
- Spartahouse Tea Room (this review)
- The Saskatchewan Hotel, Regina, Saskatchewan
- The Boathouse, Guelph, Canada
- The Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, England
- Langdon Hall, Cambridge, Canada
These next two were unacceptable:
- The Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath, England
- The Queen's Hotel, Portsmouth, England
* * * *
The chronology of when I visited each place probably affected my ratings, so here's a chronological list:
- The Four Seasons, London, England
- The Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath, England
- The Pump Room, Bath, England (superb, but not really afternoon tea)
- Claridge's, London, England
- The Boathouse, Guelph, Canada
- The St. Regis Hotel, Houston, Texas
- The Queen's Hotel, Portsmouth, England
- The Dorchester, London, England
- Brown's, London, England
- Langdon Hall, Cambridge, Canada
- The Windsor Arms, Toronto, Canada
- The Ritz, London, England
- Scolfe's Tea Room, Boreham Street, England (again, not really afternoon tea)
- The Lanesborough, London, England
- The Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, England
- The Saskatchewan Hotel, Regina, Saskatchewan
- The Fairmont Pacific Rim, Vancouver, British Columbia
- Sparta House Tea Room, Sparta, Ontario