Oscar’s Tea Room and Gift Shop in Wilton Manors, 12/6/14

Oscar’s Tea Room and Gift Shop in Wilton Manors, 12/6/14

Oscar’s Tea Room impressed from the very first phone call. After mentioning that I was booking fairly far in advance, the gentleman replied, “And a good thing too, we are already quite busy that day luv.” I think he called me darling three times in that conversation alone. I was already in love.

On the day of our seating, we drove by, missing the Tea Room the first time that we passed it, but after a U-turn, we successfully located it right by the railroad tracks. The exterior was marked with two Buckingham Palace Toy Soldiers that were almost as tall as I am. There was a quaint seating area out front. The interior was done in reds and golds. The owners seated and attended to us throughout our visit

We were by turn, “Darling,” “Luv,” or “Girls.” Kevin suggested we start with a traditional black tea and move onto a fruity one later, and we took his advice. While they put in our order for “High Tea,” Michelle and I milled around the room admiring the trappings such as the salt and pepper shakers in the shape of the Queen and her Palace Guard, the welcome message on each table, comfy sofas, and huge crystal chandeliers. There were lots of treasures for sale too, like teapots with the Queen’s picture or in the shape of Big Ben.

Soon, Craig brought out a 3-tiered tray filled with delicacies.  He described each item in detail and shared with us that everything here was homemade and based on a traditional English Tea. 

The tray included two different flavors of warm scones. In typical scone fashion, they were a tad dry but delish when embellished with clotted cream and strawberry jam. We sampled finger sandwiches: cucumber, tuna, chicken, and egg salad. There were mini quiches and also a bowl each of potato salad and coleslaw. The quantity and size of items looked a bit small, but we were surprised that we soon started to fill up, so we decided to take some of our treats home in order to save room for dessert. At one point during our lunch, Kevin randomly broke into song. At another point, when a train was whistling by, Craig announced loudly, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Oriental Express is passing us by now. The Queen will be passing shortly.”

 Kevin made recommendations for tea to go with our dessert. When Michelle inquired if cream would go with the tea selection, he paused and said, “I wouldn’t.” We could see he was struggling to add the expected, “But you can if you’d like.” He wasn’t able to bring himself to, though, so instead repeated, “… I wouldn’t,” in his adorable way. The desserts were lovely and included a dense cake bite with a cream center, fruit, mincemeat pie (which wasn’t our favorite, but we were happy to try it), and a chocolate tart. We enjoyed two more pots of tea: Christmas tea and Orange & Cinnamon. We drank so much tea, I found I had to explore their restroom, which was an experience in and of itself. It had a life size image of one of the royalty on the back of the door, framed pictures of the royal family all over the walls, and two mirrors that created the endless repeating mirror look. Many of the pictures had captions beneath them, written out in someone’s dainty script. 

Throughout our visit, I couldn’t get enough of hearing them say, “That’s fabulous Darling,” or “No problem, Luv.”  All in all, we were quite charmed by the entire experience and looking forward to going back!

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