To celebrate my 25th birthday in style, I went to Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms, York. In short, it was everything I hoped it would be and more.
For my birthday, I normally pop down to London and do some shopping, but for my 25th, I felt like I wanted to do something a little different. I stumbled across Bettys a few months ago, after reading other bloggers talking about their trips for afternoon tea, and I was determined to have my cake and eat it too! So, I'm going to take you through the lovely food that we ate, and tell you all about the atmosphere as well.
Appetiser & Starter
For the appetiser we were given prawn cocktail, with an avocado puree, lettuce and paprika. I'm not normally the biggest fan of prawns or avocado, but this was SO nice!
The starter's actually called a 'savoury selection'. It consisted of a smoked salmon, cream cheese and dill roulade, and also a miniature pork and apple pie. The salmon is freedom-farmed from Scotland, and it was served on a beautiful little wholemeal croute. But, that's just the start...
Sandwiches & Scones!
When our waiter brought the tiers out, we were pretty impressed. I'm sure you can see why! There were three sandwiches each: Coronation chicken, egg & cress, and also roast Yorkshire ham and tomato pâté. They were so tasty! I'm not normally a fan of coronation chicken, but the spiciness was quite mild, and it was lovely!
After this, we had two scones each: one which was lemon flavoured and a rose flavoured one. Again, I'm not the biggest fan of scones, but these were delicious. I'm actually quite tempted to buy some of their scones online! Now, let's get on to the cakes...
The Cakes!
We were spoiled by Bettys, because we had three mini cakes each! I opted for the gooseberry macaroon, the chocolate and passion fruit cube, and also the pistachio & chocolate dacquoise slice. If you're gonna have cake on your birthday, make sure that you do it in style! All of the cakes were just as gorgeous as you'd expect from Bettys.
The Tea
I had the Pure Peppermint Tisane, which is a caffeine-free infusion of fresh peppermint leaves. It's so tasty and refreshing, that I had two whole teapots of this in an hour and a half to myself!
You can have champagne with the Lady Betty Afternoon Tea, but we opted just to stick to tea! Again, I am really tempted to buy some of the tea I had from the Bettys website.
The Belmont Room
There are two places that you can have afternoon tea at Bettys in York - there's the Cafe Tea Rooms downstairs which you queue up outside for, and the Belmont Room. That's where the Lady Betty Afternoon Tea is served, and it's upstairs. There's no queuing required as you pre-book. (You do feel like a bit of a VIP as you casually wander past the long queue and grace the beautiful staircase up to the Belmont Room.)
The room is a lovely open space, with plenty of room between each table, so you're not too close to your fellow diners and get a bit of privacy. And the atmosphere up there is beautiful! In the corner of the Belmont Room, there's a pianist who plays refined music for you to listen to while you dine. How sophisticated can you get?
The Staff
When you get there, you're shown to your table, and assigned a waiter or waitress. We had Ben, who was absolutely lovely, very knowledgable about all the food and drink on offer, and he had a laugh with us too. All of the waiting staff we spoke to were lovely. The pianist was also really sweet! She even said 'bye' to us when we were leaving.
The Shop
Downstairs, there's also a shop next to the Cafe Tea Rooms. It's full of the gorgeous treats that you can take home with you. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen some of the macaroons that I took home with me! I also picked up a book all about Bettys and a branded canvas bag.
The Final Word...
On our way there, my parents and I joked that we could visit the McDonald's down the road after - in case we weren't full enough - but in all honesty, the food left us all absolutely stuffed. It's such dainty food, but certainly fills you up!
I'd definitely love to go again in the future, but it's the kind of thing that makes a wonderful treat, rather than something you do regularly. Our bill came to just under £100. It was expensive, but ultimately so worth it as a lovely birthday celebration!
Have you been to Bettys?
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(Just as a little note: 'Betty's' is actually styled as 'Bettys', so I'm not being grammatically incorrect when I'm writing it without an apostrophe. I don't want you to think my standards are slipping!)
