Where: New Orleans, Louisiana Style: Cocktail lounge Tea Selection: 8 loose leaf teas by Palais des Thés Teatimes: Saturday to Sunday, 11 or 2:30, Special Tea Events, Holiday Teas Reservations: Required Contact:Reserve here, 504-524-1331 Cost:$75 The Ritz-Carlton Tea Service; $55 Children’s Tea Service Destination Tea Tips: A 22% gratuity is automatically added to your bill. To reach the Davenport Lounge where afternoon tea is served, you will take the elevator to the third floor and walk past the garden courtyard.
Destination Tea Notes: Last month, Destination Tea went to Louisiana, making it the 19th state we’ve visited on our tea travels. We began at The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, wondering how the experience would compare to other Ritz-Carlton afternoon teas we’ve attended in Grand Cayman and in Atlanta (at the Downtown spring and Christmas teas, and at the former Buckhead location). While not as dazzling in setting or presentation as the others, this Ritz-Carlton afternoon tea does offer an expertly crafted, delicious afternoon tea menu. As for the tea preparation, well, something quite scandalous happened for the first time in all our ten years reviewing afternoon tea – read on!
Angela Webster McRae’s Dainty Dining: Vintage recipes, memories and memorabilia from America’s department store tea rooms chronicles the history of New Orlean’s tallest building until 1921 — Maison Blanche (also the city’s first department store from 1897-1998), now home to The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans. We were grateful for Angela’s research! Her book pictures the original building (at right), demolished and rebuilt in 1906. She also details the menu served in the store’s Rendezvous restaurant. Like most mid-century department store tearooms, lunch, rather than afternoon tea, was served here.
Arriving in the third floor lobby, walk up the stairs towards the garden courtyard to find the lounge.
This brightly lit, elegant space seems perfect for serving afternoon tea, as well as the courtyard beyond.
Afternoon tea is served in the Davenport Lounge, a softly lit multi-purpose area, where afternoon tea guests share the space with stage, dance floor and bar guests. Yes, there is a harpist on stage for our teatime!
Fine china lines the mirrored inlaid shelves that create the backdrop for the afternoon tea section of the lounge.
A true low tea setting, guests perch on low-slung couches and armchairs.
Tea Selection
A glass of bubbly or mocktail starts off the meal.
Each guest selects their tea, and the ladies who ordered Chai were satisfied with their choice. Angela, however, requested the Silver Needle white tea, only to find upon sampling her first cup, that she had received mint. Possibly this was the Green Mint tea listed on the menu. What happened next was an afternoon tea first for Destination Tea. We were at the dessert course before our server returned and Angela could request the correct tea. The server rushed to do so, and returned with a fresh pot…or so we thought.
Upon sipping the new brew and finding it to taste of chamomile (not silver needle), Angela inspected her teapot to find a single sachet that decidedly included chamomile, floating alongside the original mint sachet. Had they thought to dupe us into believing this was a fresh pot of tea? And that this was a white tea? If they had run out of the silver needle, why not just say so, and let us select an alternate? We theorize that there are, lately and wonderfully, so many newcomers to afternoon tea, that iconic afternoon tea establishments like The Ritz-Carlton are counting on their customers’ ignorance when it comes to tea (same for clotted cream). The alternative explanation, which we are also seeing much too frequently, is that the staff itself has not been properly educated on tea and its preparation (note that this is yet another luxury hotel that does not decant tea leaves before serving).
Scones & Spreads, Savories and Sweets
You’ll forgive the mixed up order of the courses in the tiered birdcage once you begin to sample their contents.
The five savories incorporated creative and yummy ingredients: Curry Chicken Salad Gougeres, Cucumber with Goat Cheese Mousse; Crab Remoulade with Grilled Green Tomato; Whipped Boursin with Tomato Jam Vol-au-Vent and Smoked Trout Rillette on housemade Cornbread.
We enjoyed every bite of the savory course.
Each guest is offered a plain and orange cranberry scone, which were true scones…
…served with Housemade Lemon Curd (yum!), Raspberry Jam and what is billed as a “Devonshire cream,” but described by our server as a “clotted cream butter.” We thought it was more like butter than clotted cream.
One of our reviewers could not stop gushing over the fabulous Double Chocolate Cake, but we agreed that all of the housemade pastries were a treat, including Mango Passionfruit Tart, Lemon Poppyseed Madeleine, Praline Pecan Butter Cookie and Pistachio Raspberry Macaron.
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