High tea, served every afternoon

High tea at Sophie's Kitchen is a full sitting, not a plate of biscuits with a teabag. Each guest gets their own pot, brewed to the leaf and the minute, and each table gets a stand built in our kitchen that morning: savoury on the bottom, scones in the middle, pastry on top.

What is on the stand

Savoury — smoked salmon on rye with dill cream, cucumber and herbed butter on white, egg salad with chive, a warm quiche of the day and a spiced sausage roll.
Scones — plain and fruit scones baked to order, served warm with clotted cream and house-made preserves.
Sweet — lemon tart, chocolate ganache slice, seasonal fruit choux, macarons and whatever the pastry section could not resist making that week.

The tea itself

We keep a full loose-leaf list rather than a token six: black teas from Assam and Ceylon, a smoky Lapsang, green sencha and jasmine, white peony, a rooibos and three herbal infusions. Every guest chooses their own and gets their own pot — a detail we changed early on after a regular pointed out that sharing one pot between four defeats the purpose.

Sittings and booking

High tea runs in fixed two-hour sittings and is booked in advance. Weekend sittings fill first; a week's notice is sensible. Dietary changes — vegetarian, gluten-friendly, nut-free — are straightforward with forty-eight hours' notice, and the kitchen would rather adjust the stand than watch someone push it aside.

Occasions

Most of our sittings are birthdays, baby showers, engagements and the occasional quiet Tuesday that somebody decided to make special. Tell us when you book and we will set the table for it: a cake with candles, a hand-written menu card, or simply the corner table where nobody will rush you.