Tea the Thirty-Fourth

'for coal fires roared, and punch and tea were steaming'
The Shelbourne - Elizabeth Bowen

The Shelbourne Hotel, St Stephen's Green, Dublin - Monday 17th February 2014

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

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A half-term trip to Dublin, with another birthday to celebrate (how did my baby get to be eleven?) - inevitably there would need to be a tea, and there was a very clear choice for its location.

The Shelbourne is not only one of Dublin's oldest and smartest hotels and historically interesting, but was also the subject of a history by Elizabeth Bowen (the novelist and short story writer who has long been a particular favourite of mine, and pet research topic when a student). I dragged Lucy, then Manson, here on a pilgrimage when we were in Dublin on a choir tour in 1994, but was delighted to have the opportunity to come back and to sample the tea experience here as a part of the odyssey.  I would almost like to claim EB as an honorary tea taker as she has felt part of my life for such a long time, but even I must accept some limits of reality.

It certainly lived up to our expectations and was a very delightful afternoon.

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Irish literature became very much 'my thing' when I was at university and so visiting Dublin is very exciting, and the days we were there were filled with those 'I am standing on the spot where.....' thrills. The Shelbourne was a particularly fine place for indulging in this type of literary historical self-indulgence. Not only is there Bowen's charming, if rather fanciful and anecdotal, 'biography' of the place, but this was where Thackeray stayed when he visited the city, and Yeats held court here reading his poems aloud to his friends.

The hotel itself has been at the heart of many  events in the history of the city and the country.   Hosting the great and the good, facing the dramas of an often turbulent history, it was practically under siege during the civil war, and still bears bullet scars. The first hotel on the site was begun in three Georgian terraced houses in 1824, and then the current building built in 1866, and is an institution for which people feel great pride.

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We took tea in the Lord Mayor's Lounge - a very pleasing drawing room, with long bay windows looking out over St Stephen's Green.

Elegant but also comfortable, with armchairs and sofas around low tables, it was a most pleasing setting. We even had the joy of the table next to the fire.

It was good to see that they also maintain certain key standards:

The piano music was not live, but this can be very much excused by the civilised repertoire chosen for the piped delights - a tea accompanied by such as the Goldberg variations is a tea much enhanced.

The meal itself was very impressive. It was all beautiful presented with understated elegance, and carefully served.

The sandwiches were beautifully prepared, and Paul enjoyed them very much. They were a little fussy for Olivia's and my taste (which is entirely our own problem), so we asked for some bread and butter and were delighted by the selection of warm rolls and beautiful soda bread that was swiftly provided - an extremely promising start.

An interesting addition to the tea table was the warming stand for the tea pot - a simple silver dish with a tea light inside - this is much to be recommended.

The arrival of the cakes was both an aesthetic pleasure and a generous replenishing of comestibles. The scones warmed and wrapped in a napkin were accompanied by delicious little ginger loaves. Cream and jam were plentiful. The jam was raspberry, which I know does not always meet with the approval of cream tea purists, but was very lovely all the same.

The cakes were especially to be commended and were a very interesting historical element of the tea. The menu explained it all quite fully - the chef had based these individual sweets on recipes for desserts that have been served at different times in the hotel's history:

A pavlova first served over the Horseshow weekend in August 1954;

chocolate mousse with mango and passionfruit served on the occasion on an Ireland versus Wales rugby match in 1956;

and a blackberry mousse, with caramelised apple, from the 1924 Christmas menu.

They were all delightful, but for me the blackberry mousse was quite exceptional and I was very glad that Olivia didn't want hers.

There was so much to enjoy, too much really, but they were extremely obliging about providing a box for us to take with us the cakes we hadn't managed to eat.

The service was excellent - friendly and efficient, but unobtrusive. Other establishments could learn a great deal from The Shelbourne.

Also, they were very lovely to the birthday girl, which is always appreciated.

This is a very high ranking tea in all aspects of the experience. Perhaps the only place it slightly lapsed was with the scones - these were perfectly nice (good middle ranking) but not quite the exceptional standards of others that we have sampled. However, everything else more than compensated for this and the quality of the food should make certain London establishments look to their laurels.

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Thirty Fourth Tea - Thirty Fourth Year

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The hotel is exceedingly elegant from the iconic nubian princess and slave-girl lamp holders along its facade, to its old fashioned barbershop, via the more traditional 'smart hotel' stylings of its hallways and staircases.

The small museum displays letters from illustrious and infamous guests  and houses the hotel registers which are available for browsing. I wish I had had time to pore over them to find Elizabeth Bowen's signature but it might have been a rather lengthy task.

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Paying Homage

Our hotel was also on St Stephen's Green, and whilst not on the scale of The Shelbourne, was a pleasing group of three Georgian terraced houses which had been part of Newman's Catholic University buildings, and were very typically Dublin buildings. Whilst we were on the third floor, and there were many, many stairs, we did have room at the front with views over the Green.

Only on the morning we were leaving did I make the momentous discovery that it was in one of these houses that Gerard Manly Hopkins lived during his time in Dublin, so had very little time to wallow in that literary serendipity. Given that he was terribly depressed during much of his time there, perhaps it was not to be brooded on, but then this was the place where he wrote his remarkable 'terrible sonnets' which are such extraordinary works it does still seems quite tremendous to have stayed there.

Another literary pilgrimage within Georgian Dublin was to 15 Herbert Place, Elizabeth Bowen's birthplace. It is now offices, but fortunately I made my hurried visit on a Sunday and was able to photograph it without incurring curious stares.

Added to which were the constant lines of Yeats that kept springing to mind, and not just outside the Post Office, which also brought back many memories of Sixth Form and did make it feel like Clare or Jill might appear around any corner and complete the quotation.

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Another truly lovely tea.

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Tea the Thirty-Third

The instinct which warns all good Englishmen when tea is ready 

immediately began to perform its silent duty.

Summer Lightening - P.G. Wodehouse

The Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly, London - Saturday 8th February, 2014

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

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At the inception of the odyssey, it had not been my aim to complete the forty teas within a single year (I was always aiming for too many expensive establishments for that to seem a reasonable imposition on the Ryan coffers). At one stage, though, it had looked as if this might be possible - however, it seemed quite out of keeping with the style of the project to rush unnecessarily and potentially to miss both people and places that I would really like to include. With only seven teas left, I fear even now that I won't be able to cover every desired eventuality, but it will be possible to continue to draw out the anticipation, perhaps even as far as Paul's approaching fortieth.

However, standards dictated that the anniversary of Tea the First should be celebrated with ceremony and style, and with unusual planning ahead on my part back in the autumn I made a booking for tea at The Ritz.

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Another of London's iconic hotels, The Ritz was opened in 1906 by Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz. He conceived it as an exceptionally luxurious and stylish location, with several unique features for the time - bathrooms for every guest room, double glazing and brass, rather than wooden, beds.

Architecturally reminiscent of a French chateau, with irrepressibly rococo styling, it remains both a landmark and an extraordinary confection.

Ritz had previously been manager at The Savoy, and took from there the idea of the hotel afternoon tea, which is taken in the elegant palm court. It has become an institution at the hotel and it is necessary these days to book months in advance to get a table.

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Given all this, we had high expectations of this tea, and the hotel do their best to develop this further. You are reminded at booking that there is a strict dress code - men are expected to wear a jacket and tie and no-one may enter the hallowed tea room in jeans or trainers (which leads me to wonder whether they have the same regular tussles that I have with sixth formers over what exactly constitutes a pair of jeans).  Timings are also specified; you have a booking for a specific sitting and it is clearly stated that you may be there for up to an hour and three-quarters and no longer.

Now, I am all in favour of 'standards' (and it was very pleasing that people were smartly attired, although they were no noticeably smarter than at the Savoy or Brown's) but this then predicates a reciprocal excellence on the part of the establishment.

Once people had begun to take their places for the 3.30 sitting, tea was promptly brought to your table - a waiter took individual orders of tea blend, but the food was brought without consultation (so we had no chance to ask about minor requirements such as no mustard on the ham sandwiches). It did feel a little like they were simply going through the motions and depositing the teas on each table in a frankly canteen-ish manner.  The staff were pleasant, and when asked for anything were largely helpful, although they were not as attentive as other places and there was no sense of your being 'looked after' by a specific person, as had happened not only at Brown's and the Savoy, but also at many other less renowned establishments.

The quality of the comestibles was, of course, extremely high - with light, fresh sandwiches, fluffy scones (perhaps a little chewy towards the base - I suspect the use of a strong flour with a lot of cream of tartar - the Nigella approach), plentiful cream and jam, and refined cakes and pastries, but the presentation was not absolutely top notch. Cakes were not very attractively arranged and were plonked a little haphazardly, very much to one side of the plate.

Floral china is clearly de riguer in these establishments across London, but I did feel this fluted design of little blue flowers was a bit 1980s BHS...

I am being harsh, I suppose, because much was very lovely - the lemon drizzle cake from the trolley was exceptional, and combined gooey stickness with an extraordinary lightness, and was deserving of high praise. However, again the slightly off-hand manner and inept serving skills of the trolley attendant compared not at all well with our experiences elsewhere (whilst you can't go too far wrong translating a slice of lemon cake onto a side plate, the gooey chocolate, caramel and pecan cake that Paul had was rather smeared onto his).  

To finish off, as soon as other tables vacated around you, they went into clearing mode with little care to hide the fact that they wanted to clean up and start setting for the next sitting. The fact that everyone is herded in and out at the same time is not conducive to making it feel like a smooth and elegant feat of organisation. In other places where tables are discreetly cleared in an ongoing process you don't even notice - as Paul said of the whole experience 'you don't feel overwhelmingly welcomed'.

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Photographic Hazards of Afternoon Tea: The Cake Stand

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An interesting variation on the lounge pianist was the presence of a harpist, who manfully plucked his way through jazz standards for our entertainment.  'It had to be you' was interesting on the harp, and, of course, his medley included 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square'. He varied this diet with a snatch of Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, before completing his allotted hour and leaving so that the tea takers would have no difficulty hearing the clattering of plates and knowing that the staff really wanted us to leave.

Naturally, though, the company was delightful.

We did have a lovely time, and we did all eat a splendid tea (I'm still not really hungry twenty-four hours on), but if we were selecting a place for a very special tea in London in future it wouldn't be here.

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Thirty-Third Tea - Thirty-Third Year

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Birthday Treats

Coming up to town on the train for tea was an excellent excuse for a whole day of birthday joyfulness.

Starting with a visit to the Persephone book shop in Bloomsbury for a small spending spree courtesy of my Mamma:

Enjoying archetypal London sights:

Lovely browsing in Hatchard's, Fortnum's and Liberty's, with a little stop off in Hamley's for Paul, sorry, I mean Olivia:

Culminating in a trip to the Criterion Theatre on Piccadilly Circus, to see The 39 Steps, which we have long wanted to see and which was utterly hilarious and a fantastic end to a glorious day.

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Cake Horror

A small glossy, yellow dome on the top of the cake stand - it seemed an enticing morsel, possibly passion fruit or mango, some manner of glazed mousse, I thought to myself. Full as I was, it seemed a shame to leave it.

I delicately took a forkful and then everything went wrong. The curse of bannoffee pie gets everywhere. Those who know me will realise that this was a terrible trauma - and it wasn't just that it contained banana, but also it clearly contained that even greater horror 'banana flavour' - oh, people of The Ritz, why?

In the past I may have smiled indulgently at the way, in most smart hotels, they talk you through all the items on your cake stand - from now on I shall insist upon it.

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Olivia made full use of the varied facilities of the Ladies - although she was disappointed to be unable to get the lid off the ice bucket to freshen her glass of water.

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