Lenzerheide

I had frankly begun to despair of ever finding a decent afternoon tea down under. In a desperate attempt to be hip and modern and original many Australian afternoon tea venues have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Some of them have done away with scones altogether. Others have introduced cocktails and cakes to try and attract a hipper crowd and some of the cakes (not to mention the dry rock cake excuses for scones) had driven me to despair.

I had mastered cooking my own chocolate eclairs and have always made good scones so was just about to confine our afternoon teas to the house when we came across an ad for Lenzerheide restaurant announcing that they are now doing High Tea from 12-3pm daily. Once bitten twice shy I rang the restaurant to enquire whether scones were part of the equation and was assured that they were. Without further ado we booked and, allelujah, the wait for a decent Australian afternoon tea venue was over!

Lenzerheide is a grand, old school and highly awarded resturant in its own right. This gives it access to great suppliers and some very gifted pastry chefs. The restaurant is housed in a grand old home and surrounds a central atrium filled with plants. The decor is a little reserved and formal but comfortable enough. There was no live music but that is expecting a bit much from a restaurant branching out into High Tea. That said the choice of music left a little to be desired - at one point we were being serenaded by a tune that sounded suspiciously like the theme song from the Benny Hill show played on the banjo. It's a testament to how good the tea was that we managed to ignore the soundtrack!

We were greeted with a glass of Jansz sparkling wine with a hibiscus flower at the bottom of the glass which was a pleasant way to start the afternoon. Lenzerhiede have a large selection of leaf teas and some artisanal "unrolling" teas as well supplied by Adelaide's T Bar. A lot of the teas are Australian and, after much perusing, I chose a black tea from the Daintree. My husband decided on an Earl Grey "Blueflower" blend flavoured with cornflowers and mallow blossoms as well as the more predictable bergamot. The teas were served in small stainless steel pots which required refilling a few times. Unfortunately this meant the tea stewed as the leaves weren't replaced. I requested a fresh pot of English Breakfast to wash down the last of the pastries which we were charged for. Either larger tea pots or removing the leaves once the tea had brewed might have resolved the need for a fresh pot and is something Lenzerheide ought to consider.

To the savouries. There was a selection of fairly standard salmon, cucumber and ham and cheese sandwiches which I thought a little bland but my husband enjoyed. He noted that the staff had been a bit radical and left the skins on the cucumbers! There was also a tomato bruschetta which had unfortunately gone soggy, a tasty pork and bacon pie and a very good chicken terrine with mango chutney.

The second tier held our scones, both raisin and plain, two adorable mini muffins with sugar spun carrots on top and two Danish pastries. Both the scones and the pastries were warm.

The raisin scone was absolutely packed with raisins and was very good indeed. The plain scone was a little disappointing in that you could faintly taste baking powder, but it was light and buttery and definitely acceptable. A far cry from Australian scones we have tried elsewhere. A small quibble were the artisanal jams. We were given a choice of a rose petal jam that tasted like Turkish Delight and an apple and cinnamon jam. Both were no doubt excellent examples of their kind but I prefer ordinary jam on a scone. When we asked we were offered the option of apricot jam but we turned that down. Three minutes later our fabulous waitress arrived with some fresh raspberries in a small bowl drizzled with some raspebrry vincotto and asked if that might be a substitute for raspberry jam. We were most impressed! The cream here was of course not clotted, but was as good as one generally gets outside Devon.

The carrot muffins were beautifully light and moist and the praline swirl Danish tasted like freshly made puff pastry. I asked the waitress whether the Danish had been made on site and she said that the restaurant actually imports the pastry, par-baked, from Denmark and finishes it off here. Having lived in Denmark I can attest to the finished product being as good as the real thing. Top marks for ingenuity.

Our final cake stand layer had two divine looking (and tasting) cannoli, some white chocolate fudge cakes decorated with a spun sugar flower and a strawberry dipped in white and then dark chocolate. We have in the past declared a strawberry dipped in chocolate as a cheat dish in an afternoon tea. We stand by that principle but at least here it had been dipped in two chocolates and the dark and bitter chocolate was exceptionally good.

On the whole we declare the Lenzerheide tea to be on a par with some of the best we have tried. There are Australian touches such as the tea and Australian sparkling wine on arrival, but these are not at the expense of the traditional aspects like fine scones and delicious pastries. Whoever made the muffins and the fudge cakes and cannoli deserves a special mention for creating beautifully presented and tasty treats. The service was outstanding and attentive at all times. We will come again and would highly recommend that you head to Lenzerheide should you find yourselves with an afternoon to spare in sunny Adelaide.