** This restaurant is now closed. **
Treat yourself. My everyday mantra. But, if there's ever a day or an occasion to treat yourself to the nines, that would be your birthday.
That is why we found ourselves at Cafe Linnea one summer afternoon, to treat ourselves, but most importantly KN, for her birthday.
Cafe Linnea, sister restaurant of Duchess Bake Shop, has gone through a few changes since their opening a couple years ago. Perhaps their biggest change of all -- their no-tipping policy had been dropped since last year, reasons being that it was no longer feasible for the restaurant moving forward.
On the food forefront, they've expanded their offerings past brunch and are now open for dinner service five days a week. They still serve high tea, but instead of serving it every Sunday for one seating, they reserve one Sunday a month for an all-day high tea. This gives their kitchen team more time and energy to create a special high tea experience for guests, as I've noticed their offerings change every month to fit a certain theme. For the month of July when we visited, the theme was Canada-inspired.
In order to enjoy high tea for yourself, a reservation must be made in advance, with tickets for purchase on their website. Seatings are available at 10:00, 10:30, 12:30, 1:00 or 3:00, and are two hours long. Tickets are $65.00 a person, which includes your choice of tea, an amuse bouche, and a 3-tiered tea tray with various goodies. They also offer a wine and cocktail list, as well as drink pairings, if you wish to purchase them outside the ticket price.
Some time later, the grand pièce de résistance was brought out to our table. I love how it isn't your typical high tea set-up. There was a lot going on but our server made sure to go through every item on the tray with us.
The bottom tier, or the savoury portion of the tea, was inspired by different regions across Canada. From left to right:
- True North: cold sorrel soup, northern greens
- Truthfully, I could have skipped this one. I wasn't a fan of the the sour, fishy taste, and I think the flavour was even more apparent with the temperature that it was served at.
- Prairies: bison bannock slider, pickled cucumber
- The bison patty was a little dry but it was meaty and seasoned well.
- West Coast: maple cured salmon, dill ricotta, wonton crisp
- Probably my favourite item of the tier, the slider being a close second. I may be biased because I love anything with smoked salmon.
- Quebec: sesame bagel, baked egg, maple dressed green
- This was okay, a bit plain overall. I think they could've done more with Quebec as their inspiration (eg. poutine, tourtière, smoked meat).
- East Coast: PEI oyster, spicy ramps, cucumber granita
- Not a huge fan of raw oysters so it's unfair for me to comment. A bit on the fishy side.
Second tier up was the "pastry" section! From left to right:
- "Lin-Bit": Linnea Timbit, saskatoons, creme fraiche, borage
- Cute play on the iconic Tim Horton's timbit. Instead of a doughnut, it was more of a creampuff with a Saskatoon berry jam filling.
- Yule Log: smoked chocolate & raspberry branch
- They used both white chocolate and milk chocolate to create the "log." I don't know exactly what the "branches" were (pine or rosemary?), but KN couldn't get past the woody taste. I couldn't really notice it.
- Rocky Gemstone: cranberry pate de fruit
- Pate de fruit was melt-in-your-mouth and bursting with fruit flavour.
- Snowy Madeleine
- A buttery little cake dusted off with icing sugar.
- Nanaimo Bar Chocolate
- I've had a Nanaimo bar maybe once before in my life, and I know them as just being really sweet. The only thing I can remember about the chocolate was the dark chocolate shell.
Top tier -- even more sweets, but in the form of petit fours! When we finally got to this tier, we were basically all sugared out. We ended up packing most of it up for the road.
- Macaron
- I totally don't remember what the filling was (sorry, should've taken notes!) but I loved the Canadian flag embossing.
- Tartlette
- I think this was supposed to be a riff on a butter tart as the filling was caramel-esque. Not as sweet as a traditional butter tart though.
- Shortbread
- One of the new feature flavours in the Duchess display case. Glazed shortbread with strawberry and cacao nib.
- Aero Bar Chunk
- Made with dark chocolate instead of the traditional milk chocolate. This sadly melted when it sat in my car so I couldn't "feel the bubbles." T_T
- Chocolate Mendiant
- I had the white chocolate with pistachio and dried raspberry. This also melted but it was easily recovered in the fridge afterwards!
As a parting gift, they gave each of us a small satchet of L'Amour, one of their custom tea blends. It combines Darjeeling black tea, freeze-dried raspberries, dried rose petals, and raspberry and lychee extracts. They also sell this in Duchess Provisions.
Overall, it was a fun afternoon pretending to be fancy with our tea and treats. I think it's the priciest high tea experience available in the city, but I think you're getting quite a bit out of it. The food is definitely a tier above cucumber sandwiches and scones.
Remember, pinkies up!
Cafe Linnea
Holland Plaza
10932 119 St NW
Edmonton, AB
(780) 758-1160
- CT
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