by Abigail Petrecca
The quaint Victorian-looking building housing the Cambridge Tea House. The amazing cafe is owned by Mary Boesch and the amazing creator of the food is head chef Sarah. This teahouse seemed to be taken straight out of England and dropped in the corner of West 5th Avenue and Cambridge Boulevard in Grandview. The high pointed roof points to the sky and draws the eye upward then back down. The brick folds around the building, engulfing the restaurant in a tight hug. The open areas around the building, draw the eye from window to window, but leave the eye plastered to a large window in the front where bystanders are able to peer inside. The scene inside depicts laughter filling the small while the music softly harmonized by the light mumble of different conversations circulating from table to table.
Once inside, the sweet smell of pastries meld together with the savory scents and aromas that fill the air like oxygen. The fragrance delivers you to a small seat where an elaborate and elegant chair awaits for your arrival. A stamped implement of a red crown is on the pure white tablecloth. From that moment on, this teahouse is no longer on a road in Grandview. The building has seemed to be plucked from its comfortable resting place and transported to another time and another county. Sit back and enjoy the meal, not from Grandview, but from the cobble side streets of England.
The restaurant has amazing, freshly made food that is beyond comparison to any other teahouse that I have ever been to. Everything is made fresh to order. Yes, that means no frozen breakfast sandwiches that get pulled out of the freezer and insert it into a microwave, like some cafes. Breakfast leads off the meal. First, 3 slices of their homemade tea bread is on the menu. Now tea bread is not just bread for tea. It is almost like a cake that is moist and velvety. The head cook, Sarah, infuses the bread with sweet flavors that the tea bread is almost like a pastry. The homemade scones that are also made daily, and homemade clotted cream are superb. Either one of the pastries is the perfect start to a meal. The breakfast item, which might seem unexpected, was completely amazing. In the parfait the yogurt and granola. Now this granola is not your everyday Quaker Oats kind of granola. It is homemade and made daily. The granola is the centerpiece, then layered with yogurt and different seasonal fruit. Then for a lunch option, there was the veggie sandwich. Luckily, there was the option of adding chicken to the sandwich, making it not vegetarian of course, but still delicious. It was fresh and flavorful. The different complimenting ingredients danced off my taste buds with every bite that I engulfed.
In addition to the normal, everyday menu features, there are different daily specials. There are normally two quiches of the day, a seasonal side, the scone of the day, a special pastry, and a meal option. All of the daily specials are made on that day and give a nice variation to the normal menu if the customer would like a change from the everyday normal menu.
The tea served at the teahouse the amazing teas from Harney and Sons. They had iced tea, hot tea, herbals, and even the foreign, fruity oolong tea. The teahouse also includes seasonal teas like a hot cinnamon tea for the winter and a passion fruit tea during the summer. Each tea is made to order and comes with an authentic tea cozy in order to keep the teapot at the right temperature.
A special offer that the teahouse has is their candlelight dinners. The dinners are the perfect spot to take a date for an intimate time where you can enjoy some amazing, unforgettable food and tea. The romance will be blooming like a flower in the summer, as you sit a consumer can sit at a table and only have to soft glow of the candle flame separating them and their date.
The atmosphere is unforgettable. There is only one room, so the tables are close to each other, but not too close that the whole cafe would be able to hear a certain conversation going on at another table. On the inside, the room is filled with glass windows for the customer to look out while enjoying their meal. The windows also make the space seem larger and not too cramped. There is also exposed brick in the inside, which is warm and inviting. The feeling is just very homey. There is a coat rack by the door so anyone is able to place their coat and hat on the rack as if they were at a friend’s house or their own home.
The service is also very accommodating. There are only a few waitresses that work at the teahouse and they seem to love working there. They always have a smile on their face and seemed pleased to serve each and every customer.
This cozy restaurant is not your normal just some ordinary greasy spoon restaurant for lunch. There are some many options and flavors that take it outside greasy spoon genre. The outside look will invite the bystander in, but the food and flavor of the Tea House will keep the customer coming. So give the place a shot. Waltz in, make yourself at home, and sit back, relax, and have a cup of tea.
Image courtesy Cambridge Tea House