11 High Street, Maidenhead, SL6 1JP
Tea at Eat Dirt
This has to be one of the best names for a natural eating cafe ever. Eat Dirt has okay tea but gorgeous soups, jacket potatoes, baguettes, salads and lots more. I’d recommend eating lunch there. It’s warm and cosy and there’s always lots of staff so you don’t have to wait long.
Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £1.25 for a large tea.
Cake? Yes, and lunch food too.
Go again? Yes, their smoked salmon baguettes are divine.
National Theatre, South Bank, London, SE1 9PX
Tea and cake at the Lyttelton Café
The Lyttelton Café is on the ground floor of the National Theatre and has lots of seats and space. We grabbed some tea and N and I got some cake to share and we all headed over to a spare table. We had just been wandering along the South Bank for no particular reason and got cold and decided some tea was a good idea.
There was a performance of something about to start and people started to mill around. Then, quite casually, DM nodded his head towards the other side of the room and said ‘There’s Alan Bennett’. We turned and it was true, there was Alan Bennett. Just walking along holding a picture frame wrapped in bubble wrap under his arm. We weren’t the only people to turn and stare but no one said anything to him or took photos of him, just watched him walk into a black door I assume was a stage entrance.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone famous whilst wandering round London, but it’s the first time I’ve felt the urge to jump up and rush over and just generally embarass myself by garbling compliments. I didn’t though. It’s Alan Bennett. You can’t just garble things at Alan Bennett.
After he’d gone we sat and talked about how much we liked Alan Bennett. A retrospective had been on TV recently so we had lots of things to say. Something that everyone said was, ‘He looked just like he does on TV’, which is a stupid thing to say, but true.
The tea was okay and the cake was nice if a bit odd. It was chocolate gluten free but seemed to have biscuit and apricot in it, nice but surprising. Really though I’d given up caring about the tea by then. I was still star struck.
Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No
Milk jug? Big one you helped yourself to.
Price? Around £5 for two teas and a piece of cake.
Cake? Yes, and cookies and sandwiches.
Go again? Yes, it’s in a handy place when wandering the South Bank and I saw Alan Bennett.
7-9 Wharf Street, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 5AN
Tea with artful custard creams at Document House
Document House is a ‘lounge bar’ in Newbury that has a board outside saying it also does coffee and tea (which is why we went in). It’s a comfortable bar with sofas and tables and does very good food. We went in around 6pm and it was quiet enough for us to relax and have a proper chat.
The tea came in a latte glass with a long spoon but we were most impressed with the artfully arranged custard creams. C’s drink also came with the artistic biscuits so we were confident it was a deliberate choice.
Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No
Milk jug? Yes, mini china one.
Price? Around £1.60.
Cake? No, but expertly balanced custard creams.
Go again? Yes, when needing tea in the evening in Newbury this seems a good place to go.
The British Library, St Pancras, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB.
Tea and extra large muffin at the British Library
The British Library is impressive. You should go to the St Pancras site and look round the exhibitions even if you don’t need to use it for anything else. It also has rather good catering provided by Peyton and Byrne. I went to the restaurant of the London site to get myself some tea. I wanted cake as well but the cake was reasonably expensive. Then I spotted some gigantic muffins. They were big enough to have been sold as cakes, that’s how big they were. I picked coconut and raspberry and it had whole plump raspberries inside it. Look again at the photo, that’s not a trick of the camera, that muffin is actually bigger than the tea cup. The tea was okay, the normal tea bag in a cup job, but spotting those muffins made the whole experience seem exotic.
Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No
Milk jug? Big one you helped yourself to.
Price? £1.20 for tea, £1.95 for super-sized muffin.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes, but just because the British Library is worth visiting.
7 Blagrave Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 1PJ.
Tea and jacket potatoes at La Baguette
La Baguette is a nice little cafe that seems to do most of its trade from take away baguettes at lunch time. You can also eat in and that’s what L and I did. We had a jacket potato and a mug of tea each. The service was good and the range of fillings was also good. I’d recommend it for a cheap light lunch when in Reading town centre.
I’ve just looked up the website and apparently it’s also a B and B. I did not know that.
Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No
Milk jug? No.
Price? £2.75 for the jacket potato, £1.20 (?) for tea.
Cake? Some, mainly jackets or baguettes.
Go again? Yes, for the food not for the tea.
6-8 St. Helen’s Square, York, YO1 8QP.
Tea at Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms, York
Ah, Bettys. Bettys is one of my very favourite tea rooms and I was a little perturbed that it wasn’t on the blog, especially as that meant I hadn’t got to go to one in over a year.
On New Year’s Eve we were all in York and just before they stopped letting people in, we went to Bettys. Bettys is popular and I have always had to queue to get in, but the queue does go down quickly and it’s worth the wait.
They are traditional and the waitresses have pinafores and the waiters have waistcoats. There is cake and then more cake. There are main meals and breakfast specials and ice cream sundaes and chocolate pancakes and on the day we went, four different types of mince pie. And the tea! The same company is also Taylors of Harrogate so they naturally have a very wide range of tea (and coffee, if you like that sort of thing). Taylors of Harrogate tea is gorgeous, if you are further south than Bettys and want to try some, try The teashop by the canal.
I had Christmas Spice Tea, that was spicy and orangey but made with a black tea also. Surprisingly it came out bright pink. R had China Rose Tea (my favourite), Mum had Bettys blend coffee, Dad had Bettys blend tea and S had Earl Grey. We also had food and yes, I did have the chocolate orange pancakes. They were scrummy.
Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? Yes, Taylors of Harrogate.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £33 for 5 lots of tea and 4 lots of food.
Cake? Yes and afternoon tea and scones and main meals and sandwiches and ice cream and coffee.
Go again? Always.
32d Church Street, Caversham, Reading, Berkshire, RG4 8AU 0118 946 4749
Perfect mince pie and tea at Warings Bakery
Warings is a small chain of family bakeries based in Reading. They are also one of the few that still actually make the things they sell on the premises. A lot of other chains bake the products on the premises but they don’t make it there. It comes in from somewhere else and they just stick it in the oven. Warings does things properly and it smells good when you walk past, what more could you want?
I realised that it was almost halfway through December and I hadn’t yet had a mince pie. Warings seemed the place to get one so I went in. They had a choice of normal shortcrust pastry mince pies or Viennese style mince pies. I chose a Viennese style as it has crumbly pastry and they heated it up for me. It was my perfect first mince pie.
Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £2.50 for tea and mince pie, I think.
Cake? Yes and soup, jacket potatoes etc.
Go again? Yes.
Tea and cake at Tea Smith
I blogged about Tea Smith a while ago but didn’t take a photo while I was there. I went back and it’s as good as ever but they’ve increased their seating which means more people can sit down. Here’s a photo of my tea and some green tea cake. Enjoy.
Westfield London, 1 Ariel Way, London, W12 7SH
Tea at Apostrophe
Apostrophe is one of a collection of cafes inside the Westfield shopping centre. In my opinion there are not enough cafe choices in Westfield, too many chains and all in the same places: clusters of cafes and people and then nothing for miles. It probably is miles too, Westfield is a scarily large shopping centre. Tea is needed when it’s time for a break.
Apostrophe is a chain of cafes in London and apparently their hot chocolate was recently voted the best in London by Time Out. I wouldn’t know about the I ordered tea as I’d seen people drinking pots of tea in the seating area. They had a choice of loose leaf tea and I picked Earl Grey Red Baron. The loose leaf tea was put in a big tea bag and dumped in a cup. Where was my tea pot? I was tired from shopping and couldn’t face asking for a pot so just stuck with my cup. It was very nice tea. The photo is not clear but there were flecks of red in the tea, hence the Red Baron presumably.
Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? Yes.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £5.20 for tea and a baguette.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes, but I’ll ask for a pot next time and get someone to test the hot chocolate for me.
The festive setting at The teashop by the canal
I’ve already sung the praises of The teashop by the canal but I thought I’d share with you a festive photo of my most recent visit. It was cold and raining but there was an armchair and a log fire, along with hot tea and sprigs of seasonal greenery on the tables. Heaven.
Tea for you and me 