Fancy Holiday Time at Tea Upon Chatsworth

The strong women that make up most of my family like to play at being dainty every once in a while, especially when playing “lady” means getting to enjoy tasty treats. So every now and then we break from our frantic ambitions and get together for high tea at Tea Upon Chatsworth in Point Loma.

This time, we brought along my sister Jane’s two young daughters, Bella and Olivia to celebrate my mother’s birthday over tea. The small British-style room was decked out for the holidays. Owner and “culinary artist” Joy Walsh keeps the menu ever changing, to reflect the food of the season.

The high tea is $24.95 per person, but for children it’s $22.95 — not much of a difference. The kids didn’t get the first course of soup or any warm savories (there were three kinds), and they barely drink any tea. Certainly that’s more than a $2 difference. But, wrinkled noses at the price for kids aside, we recognized how great it was that the restaurant keeps a collection of feather boas and hats on hand for the children to select from and wear for the duration of their tea experience. Here you can see the accessories my nieces chose.

A tower of food arrives shortly after the first pot of tea. Savories on the bottom (such as cucumber and chicken sandwiches and the warm pastry savories), scones and fruit in the middle, and sweets on top.

My favorite part of the meal is always the scone with the cream and seasonal homemade preserves.

We had an extra treat this time — once we’d filled ourselves with tea and dainty finger food, our server brought an eclair for each of us. As always, we began the meal thinking, There’s no way this will be enough food, but we left with a box of bites to take home and share with the guys.