Lady Business – the journey begins

Hidden Tea Room – a world of underground options

24 Jul 2010 2 Comments

by georgianoakes in Small Business Research Tags: cupcakes, hidden tea room, high tea, Lady Gray, tea, underground restaurants

Firstly I’m knackered.  My first full week of work in three months has actually been tiring!  But it’s been a goodly reminder that I want a different life for myself and so I have renewed focus and energy on moving forward on the validation of some of the ideas I have.

My sister and I did a very cool thing last night.  We tapped into London’s burgeoning underground restaurant scene and finally, after 6 months of trying, made it to one of Lady Gray’s Hidden Tea Room events.   The concept of the underground restaurant is that you go to someone’s home and experience their cooking and style of hosted party with a group of other people who like their food as much as you do.  Lady Gray (http://www.hiddentearoom.com/) specialises in champagne afternoon tea and does it exceptionally well.

It was basically 6 courses of sugar heaven starting with a glass of bubbles on arrival on the East End terrace and these fabulous cheese biscuits that appeared to be not dissimilar to garlicky, cheesy dough balls!  We were swiftly ushered into the dining room and had an intro by Lady Gray’s hubby into all things Hidden Tea Room.  Some basic housekeeping rules were covered and an overview of the service offering including the fabulous rule that “cake is not meant to be shared so there is one piece for everyone to try” before an impressive array of teas to choose from appeared by way of menu.

I went with the Choco-Truffle tea (clearly I decided sugar on sugar was par for the course) and Bel had the Rooibos Chai.  Everyone had their own individual Bodum teapot – some sort of business about the tea infusing evenly throughout the pot – and we got stuck into course one, the sandwiches!  No dried out bread here (as we’ve experienced at some of London’s other high teas) and a delectable array of fillings, including options for vegetarians. 

By this stage the table had warmed up and the groups of 2′s and 3′s were talking quite loudly amongst themselves, cheeks flushed with the promise of more sugar, as we eagerly awaited the next course.  A small palate cleanser out of the way (homemade pineapple and mango sorbet) and out came the freshly baked scones with clotted cream and jam.  Light, fluffy, airy and FRESH – I don’t ordinarily eat scones but I tucked in as though there would never be scones to eat again.  At this point I realised we weren’t even halfway through and, as I looked across at Bel as she slopped some more cream onto her second scone and watched it start dripping down her hand, I realised we were all in trouble as the real sugar hadn’t even appeared.

Next up was the tray of cakes (lemon drizzle, short bread and the, frankly evil toffee chocolate brownie) and should have been of concern when Lady Gray told us to use some of the cream to cut through the sweetness of the brownie – but no I tucked in and ate it all anyway.  At some stage I realised some people were only eating part of the pieces of cake… perhaps to preserve sugar overload.  I glanced down at mine and Bel’s plates – clean, not even a crumb left!

It was the brownie that did it I think.  I realised I’d started swaying from side to side on my chair and singing under my breath – a classic sign of the full-blown GG sugar coma, and Bel looked like her eyes had glazed over as her head lolled listlessly from side to side.  One of the girls up the end of the table swore she was experiencing the sugar sweats and generally a level of sugar hysteria had come over the entire group.  But still there was more to come.

No high tea is complete without the obligatory cupcake and I was appalled (and secretly delighted all at once) to find out we could have TWO EACH if we wanted to.  We did not want.  Bel and I started out by sharing a chocolate one and swiftly tucked into a second, the vanilla one.  I don’t know what recipe she used but the cake was so fluffy, moist and light and the icing was proper American frosting.  Delish.  I’ve always had a soft spot for cupcakes as you all know.  Can’t help myself when the cupcake tower is put in front of me!

A quiet hush had fallen over the table, no one was speaking now, cheeks were very red and my eyes had started to experience difficulty focussing and I swear I was feeling dizzy.  Uncontrollable giggling moved sporadically up and down the table as we realised the end STILL wasn’t here.

Next up was some refreshing jasmine tea, which had the entire table mesmerised by the unfolding jasmine flower.  It gave us all something to focus on other than our swollen bellies and sugar headaches.  Served with the tea?  Chocolate peanut butter handmade truffles of course.  No one looked enthused at this last shot of pure chocolate but of course we all ate it.  And then, finally, it was over. 

Fabulous tea, fabulous savouries and exemplary baked sweet things – and all in the comfort of seemingly a living room just like yours. 

The underground scene is quite large in London, particularly in the East End – my question is do you think there is a market in Brisbane for such a concept?  I can see myself doing something like this so I’m going to give it some thought and start to look at potential menus and concepts.  

Naturally there will need to be some more corporate espionage, so sadly the Noakes sisters and friends will be eating their way through London’s best high teas this summer and trying to get a look in at some of the restaurants in Stoke Newington.   What a drag hey!

Thank you Lady Gray for the inspiration and the fabulously decadent meal last night.