High Tea at the Grand Café

One of the major things on my list of what to do in the U.K. was to partake of High Tea. When we got our map from the Oxford Information Centre, I also asked the man where he would recommend we go for High Tea. He suggested the Randolph Hotel (large hotel mentioned in Dennis’ C.S. Lewis blog) as well as three smaller establishments.

I decided that the Randolph would go to the bottom of my list, to be our last resort and we went in search of the other places. The first one we were able to locate was The Grand Café. There was a line-up to get in - which I figured was probably a good sign. If a place is that busy, it often means it’s good as well. It seemed like a massive space until I realized that the back and side walls were covered with huge mirrors so it looked much larger than it really was. After waiting about 15 minutes I was starting to second guess our decision and we were about to leave when we noticed a group of six people starting to pack up their things.

Finally we were in, seated and looking at a menu - there were pretty much two options for me - regular tea with scones or high tea which included sandwiches with the scones (we also had the choice of the Grand High Tea, with champagne alongside the sandwiches and scones.) Somehow champagne at 4:00 in the afternoon just seemed too decadent so we ordered the High Tea. Dennis did opt for a lemon fizzy drink so he was closer to the champagne than I was with Earl Grey tea. Anyway, the sandwiches were quite nice - smoked salmon and cream cheese on pumpernickel and egg mayonnaise on white bread - but the real treat were the scones. They were wonderfully light and fluffy and served with clotted cream and strawberry jam - they were most definitely the highlight of my afternoon. Oh, there is also a historic aspect to this outing - there was a plaque on the wall that proclaimed The Grand Café to be the oldest coffee house in Oxford (so it was delicious and educational, all at the same time).