New Year’s High Tea

Anoth­er guest post from Heath­er at Food­ie Gems of Wel­lie, huzzah!

I saw the James Cook advert­ising Janu­ary high tea deals recently which reminded me of the myri­ad of high tea options in the city. And think­ing what a good time of year Janu­ary is for a leis­urely after­noon tea with good friends to con­tem­plate the year ahead (if lucky enough to still be off work!).

The options include the James Cook (pol­ished), Martha’s Pantry (charm­ing), Wellesley’s McGinnity’s (old-world glam), Finc (funky), Soi (PDF) (not yet tried, but I ima­gine a little soph­ist­ic­ated, with lovely har­bour views), Hip­po­pot­amus (arty class), Sweet­pea at Petone (Pic­tured – cute, with sen­sa­tion­al cup­cakes), and Logan Brown (a piece of Wel­ling­ton his­tory).

Note that some loc­a­tions charge if all of your party don’t turn up (so be sure to con­firm your par­ti­cipant num­bers and book­ings 24 hours before­hand), and some can be booked at brunch or lunch time if you prefer not to have to fit all this deli­cious food and drink in on top of lunch or brunch.

Sweet­pea even do a bloke’s option with a ‘gen­er­ous stack of meaty treats with a couple of sangers, a cheeky scone and your choice of manly cup­cake’!

Since many include bubbles or cock­tail options, be sure to arrange a ride home and kick back and cel­eb­rate the start of anoth­er excit­ing year.

Bon appétit.

Edit­or­’s note: it would be remiss of us not to add in our own opin­ions here! We found the ser­vice at the James Cook to be eeeeeeeeeeex­cruuuuuuuuuuuuti­at­ingly slow because they bring around a tea trol­ley and do that whole thing with the urns and blah blah, but the scones were great. We love Martha’s though the tight space and the dainti­ness of everything means it’s not all that relax­ing, the space is much more breath­able at Sweet Pea, and while we haven’t had high tea at any of the oth­er places,  we have feel­ings about Finc.