Madame Posh ~ high tea in Windsor

If you are not into very vintagey, overly Victorian and excessively shabby ambience for tea sipping experience, you might love this beautiful tea house! I will go far as to say that if you are not into tea but just want to have a taste of what this tea rave is all about, you might have a head start here (that is if you are visiting England!). As for the tea lovers like myself, a cup of tea along with delicious treats Madame Posh has to offer, the affair was fully rejoiced here!

Madame Posh is not overly formal, but fancy enough for sure to be called classy tea room. The décor is of Late Barouque or Rococo style, hints of Marie Antoinette décor, resemblance to drawing room in Downton Abbey. The pastels with white and gold give a fresh and swanky look. There is seating outside as well but when we peeked inside, we were right away drawn towards the chenille upholstered settees and chairs.

Once we got ourselves situated, I noticed they also sell housewares. The main seating lounge was surrounded by shelved china, and some of the stands carrying pretty tea cups were also placed around the restaurant – an unconventional concept combining a restaurant, shoppe  and tea room.I found the menu pretty exciting and especially liked the fact that it was quite flexible. You could manipulate the items they offered to suit budget and portions. There was the high tea, cream tea as well as a la carte dessert and lunch menu. The rich desserts and cakes were spread out on the counter at entrance.

We did the traditional cake stand course and added club sandwiches, cream tea, macaroons, honey and pistachio cakes and few other pastries. The serving was pretty generous that day (saying because the picture on the menu showed tinier sandwiches and ours were bigger (still petite) and filling). You could not add the tea sandwiches outside of the high tea cake stand but other than that you could add any other item pretty much. The taste was absolutely amazing, tea steeped just right, the scones baked to perfection, pastries melting in mouth, savory items appropriately spiced up! My favorite items were scones and pistachio cake. The shrimp sandwich was yummy too!

The crowd was mixed – all ages, families, couples, all seemed to be enjoying. It was Tuesday night and any table that was empty was filled up right away. The shop stays open till 7:00pm which made our trip doable since we could not have been able to make to tea before 4:00 had we picked another spot.

You can not visit England and not have tea – England where tea is not a novelty and is found in every big and small restaurant, the tea houses still have their own standing and charm. This trip was really short and I would have loved to explore more tearooms but Madame Posh and tea at Highclere Castle did thier best to satiate the desire to sip in England in an elegant way!