Windsor Hotel

Melbourne is one of the most conservative of all Australian cities. It has quite consciously reacted against the brashness and glitzy display of Sydney in favour of tradition and class. Melburnians are famed for wearing black and for favouring class over cash. The sales girls in David Jones aren't allowed to show their shoulders at work. On occasion during my latest visit here I felt like I had stumbled back 50 years in time.

Still conservatism ought to be good in some ways and so I had high hopes for my afternoon tea excursion to the grand old Victorian Windsor Hotel. Built after Victoria's gold rush in 1883 the Windsor Hotel came to represent all that was grand and good about "Marvellous Melbourne". From that very first year afternoon tea has been served here and when I rang to book a week in advance I had trouble getting in. When we were there the tearoom was absolutely packed. It would appear that along with conservatism and wearing black Melburnians like traditional afternoon tea.

I had first decided to have afternoon tea at the Windsor when reading the founder of Adelaide's T bar memories of a visit there where tea sommeliers gave her a true appreciation of the variety and wonder of loose leaf teas. Having enjoyed the tea sommelier at London's Lanesborough I was anticipating a fun afternoon.

Imagine my disappointment therefore when I discovered that there was no choice of tea. We were offered the Windsor's own "infinitely superior English breakfast" blend or coffee. Not only that but we weren't even given our own teapots. Tea and coffee were carried around by the waiting staff who must get heartily sick of lugging these heavy kettles around refilling peoples' tea and coffee on demand. The overall effect of this was to make me feel as if I had stumbled into some over decorated American diner. When will a love of leaf tea combine with decent food in an Australian afternoon tea venue?

The decor was also a little disappointing. Having been promised a grand Victorian hotel I had expected some stained glass and high ceilings, and of course some live music of some sort. Instead the Signature Restaurant where afternoon tea is served is a low ceilinged, wood panelled room with ceiling fans and a central bar. This brought Raffles hotel to mind and felt more suited to a gin and tonic and a pith helmet than afternoon tea. The choice of china was also non-plussing. Our tea cups were very plain, thick, white and frankly ugly (which was explained by my turning the cup upside down and discovering that we were dealing with "Hotel Grade Porcelain" made in Australia). The tea trays were lovely and silver as was the sugar bowl. Could the Windsor not at least attempt to have a china set in the same league?

However despite the deficiencies of ambience, lack of music and a choice of tea the service was excellent and very friendly (in that typical Australian fashion that a conservative British or American person would no doubt find quite confronting.) It was also good that when booking and requesting a gluten free afternoon tea for my mother this was not only offered (impressive in itself) but two separate waiters approached to check that we were receiving the gluten free option.

We were given two separate, three tier cake stands (of a pleasing traditional appearance). My scones were warm and my sandwiches were pleasant enough, served on fresh soft white bread. However my poor mother's sandwiches on their gluten free "bread" were horribly dry and tasteless. She ended up eating the fillings only and leaving the sawdust bread to one side. As we both later commented, if good gluten free bread can't be found, then serve open faced sandwiches on rice cakes, or wraps in rice paper. Surely taste ought to matter more than tradition when a lack of gluten means that white bread becomes like compressed sawdust?

To return to the positives - my scones were warm and reaonably moist. The cream seemed to be clotted and the jams were lovely. My mother's gluten free sultana scone was quite good, but the gluten free plain scone was more of a rock cake. Having attempted to make gluten free scones myself I can sympathise with the chef here - gluten free flour just will not rise.

I had a selection of cakes on my middle tier that included a tasty and very beautiful apple "cone" filled with some sort of creme anglaise/apple mousse. I also enjoyed a thoroughly decadent chocolate mousse cake and (had I liked peel and citrus) would probably have loved the orange marmalade mousse creation. There was also a disappointing mille feuille that tasted very dry with pastry of a consistency of Weetbix and not enough filling.

My poor mother was given two identical biscuits made with egg white - one chocolate and one plain, a dense brownie which was reasonable and some sort of tasteless raspberry slice.

Once again we were frankly flummoxed by the lack of imagination of the kitchen staff. Where were the air light meringues made using only egg whites and sugar? The flour free orange cake that almost every corner cafe serves to its coeliac customers? The chocolate mousses and creme caramels, the panacottas... I am not gluten free and if I can think of so many tasty gluten free options then surely a top hotel restaurant could do better? My advice would be not to offer gluten free if you are going to do such a very poor approximation of an afternoon tea within these confines.

That said my own offerings were quite good in the food department. If you could only combine the sandwiches from Adelaide's Just Tickled Pink, with the food from the Windsor and the tea selection from Sydney's QVB then you would start to approximate an Australian afternoon tea experience that I would positively enjoy. In the meantime the search continues.