Prince Gastronome. Originally built as a greenhouse, the designers of the Orangery quickly realized the flaw of adding an opaque roof. So what do you do with a conservatory where nothing can grow? You put down tables and charge an exuberant amount of money for tea.
The Orangery lacked any competition, located next to Kensington Palace in the namesake park with the only rivals being trailer vendors serving fish & chips and soft serve ice cream. The building was a baroque masterpiece, with a serving area towering three stories to the roof. Light beamed in from the ground-to-ceiling windows. When they built the AMC Pacer, the designers must have looked at the Orangery and said, "Yeah, like that."
Ivory walls, Greek pillars, and natural sun offered us the illusion of sitting outside without being moistened by overcast clouds. Like the Tower Brasserie, the amount of glass offsets any need of décor inside the restaurant. The one glassless wall was bare of any adornments. Nothing hung from the ceiling. The tables were simple with wide open spaces between the chairs. A shrewd businessman would double the covers and hang menus from the walls. The Orangery was classic and inoffensive. It asks that you sit back and enjoy a proper rest in a way only the English are proficient with.
My mother and I were guided to a table, and menus were delivered. Simple, with little variety of food, the Orangery balanced that limited selection with a vast ration of tea. As proper with all menus in England, there was a lunch special, offering three courses for one price.
Our default.
Hanging under the header "Afternoon Tea Menu" each option included a tea, sandwiches, pastries, and some additional treat. Both of us ordered the Signature Orange Tea for 15.15. With that, you got an assortment of finger sandwiches (cheese, cucumber and salmon), an orange scented scone with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry jam, and a pair of "dainty" (their word) afternoon tea pastries. The recommended tea was orange rooibos. Surprising value given the ambience and prestige of the location coupled with the amount of food.
If you assumed the tea would be a paper bag with disheveled bark and synthetic flavor grains, then you are just a dirty, ignorant philistine. Assorted white and brown sugar cubes in a dainty (dainty?) cup were placed alongside two colorless ceramic kettles filled with scolding water and loose leaf tea. That's loose leaf, no bag, just large fragments of dried flora. The metal filter is placed over your cup when you pour. Unlike the one I brought from England at the end of the trip, the one supplied by the Orangery wasn't a very effective, and several smaller grains slipped through. Even with that, this was the best tea I ever had in my life...well, I can't say that. Typing that was a knee-jerk reaction even though in truth, the tea I had in China was better, but these two instances share an echelon in heaven with the bulk of competition falling far below into a level of hell usually reserved for bureaucrats and telephone solicitors.
Although you would imagine the plates to be served staggered, one after the other in ten minute intervals, you'd be mistaken. And yet, you can't believe that all three plates, six total, would somehow fit on one table at the same time. You would also be mistaken. The answer is a curate stand (yeah, I looked it up; get stuffed!). This is both elegant and traditional. Looking like a stripped bird cage, we are served three stacked plates, inches from one another, each dedicated to one course. Sandwiches were on the bottom, with the scone in the middle and pastries on top. Everything sans probably the sandwiches was made fresh that day. We sat back and slowly enjoyed our meal against the sun breaking out of drying clouds. I drank my tea with an upright pinky. I nibbled rather than devoured. I could feel a posh accent brewing in the base of my throat. I suddenly felt superior to all my neighbors. Last week, we had a pub lunch, and now we were enjoying a proper English tea.
After, we both decided to purchase a box of the orange rooibos tea to take home, the first time we purchased anything on this vacation. They were offered in loose leaf and in bags. We took the bags (should have gone for the loose leaf). At 7.50, it was a good value, better than some of the gourmet boxes I'd seen at home. Having an English tea at a location like the Orangery is not a maybe. If you happen to find yourself in the Palace Garden or Hyde Park, you simply must try it. You have not had tea until you had it in a 300 year old conservatory a hundred feet from where Princess Diana's coffin once laid.
Food: 5/5
Service: 4/5
Presentation: 7/5
Value: 4/5
Recommendation: 5/5
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