Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and tiny cloth-draped tables, it offers a
good range of teas, including a special
Jane Austen blend. Though the menu
indulges in cutesy names referring to char-
acters in Austen novels, the food is quite
good traditional teatime fare. (Where else
can you order an old-fashioned
salma-
gundi
salad?) One fancies Jane would
approve.
refugee named Sally Lunn began selling
her famous briochelike buns to aristocratic
households. Yeastier and sweeter than
scones, Sally Lunn buns make an interest-
ing variation on the cream tea; they're also
good toasted and served with lemon curd.
Even if you don't choose to cram into the
tearoom, you can buy specially blended
teas in the shop in the cellar.
Jane Austen enthusiasts know that the
novelist lived in Bath from 1800 to 1806, and
used it as a setting for her novels
Persuasion
and
Northanger Abbey
; the handsome
Georgian townhouse that contains the Jane
Austen Centre on its ground floor now has a
teashop upstairs, the
Regency Tea Rooms
(40 Gay St.;
&
44/1225/442187
). Primly
decorated with Wedgewood-blue walls
0
Bath (.3km/
1
⁄
4
mile).
L
$$$
The Royal Crescent Hotel,
15-16 Royal Crescent (
&
888/295-4710
in
the U.S., or 44/1225/823333; www.royal
crescent.co.uk). $$
Badminton Villa,
10
Upper Oldfield Park (
&
44/1225/426347;
www.smoothhound.co.uk/hotels/badmin
ton.html).
Tea
453
Betty's Café
High Tea in the Yorkshire Moorland
Harrogate, England
As the story goes, a young Swiss confec-
tioner named Frederick Belmont arrived in
the lovely Georgian-era spa town of Har-
rogate by accident in 1918 (something
about catching the wrong train in London).
It turned out to be a happy accident,
though; he promptly fell in love with the
Alpine-like rolling landscape of the York-
shire Dales and opened Betty's Café the
next year. Though no one is really sure
who Betty was, or how she fit into the pic-
ture, her namesake cafe has been in busi-
ness ever since.
The selection here is a bit overwhelm-
ing—the menu lists more than 300 breads,
cakes, and chocolates, as well as 50 differ-
ent teas and coffees. But all the baked
goods are locally made, at Betty's own
Craft Bakery, which the enterprising Bel-
mont founded in 1920. (Betty's has since
opened five branches around Yorkshire,
but the company is committed not to
expand beyond easy delivery distance of
the bakery.) The teas are all supplied by
the top-drawer specialty tea company
Taylor's of Harrogate, which was founded
in 1886 but merged with Betty's in the
1960s. Their premium blend is Yorkshire
Gold tea, a hearty blend of some 20 differ-
ent tea leaves which was especially formu-
lated to brew up well in the water of the
Dales. Their broad catalogue of teas is
sourced worldwide, much of it fair trade.
The Art Nouveau decor of the original
Harrogate location features lots of curlicued
wrought iron and an airy conservatory-like
interior. Servers continuously wheel cakes
and pastries past your table on trolleys,
making them hard to resist. Betty's iconic
pastry is the Fat Rascal—an oversized flaky
scone plumped up with citrus peel, almonds,
and cherries. The Yorkshire curd tart and
Swiss chocolate torte are also long-standing
favorites. If you order the full afternoon tea,
your table will be loaded with finger sand-
wiches, tiny cakes, a sultana scone with all
the fixings, and a pot of tea. That should
hold you until dinner.
