📍Rose Garden Tea Room (Los Angeles)
Pinkies up for an afternoon tea date among the roses.
The Sexy Directory is written and curated by me, Head Mistress Arielle Zadok. I’m an intimacy coordinator and sexologist who wants to make sex, love and intimacy a lot less daunting and a lot more fun. If you’d like to read a more in depth review, you’ll find that after the photo gallery.
In 2023 I had two days in London on my way to Spain and I was determined to make the most of them. One of the things I wanted to do was go for afternoon tea, but to my dismay, no one would take a reservation for one. Yes, I’m serious. I could see they had availability for two tops and I even offered to pay for two despite being just one (with a small appetite to boot) but no, the snooty Brits wouldn’t let me do it. Couple’s privilege is real ya’ll.
Needless to say I learned my lesson and when I heard about The Huntington Gardens Tea Room, I assembled my coven of harlots (i.e. sex coaches, therapists and scholars) and organized a day for us. Take that, London!
What’s the vibe?
Elegant, bright, and a good excuse to get fancy* in the daytime. It is high tea after all.
*If you’re going to wear heels, wear the ones you can walk in for a while.
What’s the crowd like?
There was at least one family with older folks and small children, but mostly small groups of women varying in ages. While there were a good deal of couples on the garden grounds, there weren’t too many at tea. Which is such a missed opportunity!
Accessibility?
The Huntington Gardens provides accessibility information about their grounds here. All of their buildings and most of their gardens are wheelchair accessible. They even have some available on a first come first served basis. The sidewalks are quite wide so plenty of room for wheelchairs, strollers or thruples locking arm in arm.
For those of you with dietary restrictions like me, fear not. They have both a vegan and gluten free menu available. I had the gluten free menu which is identical to the regular menu with the exception of deserts and obviously the bread.
What’s the price point?
$$$
Where can I find it?
Huntington Rose Garden Tea Room | 1151 Oxford Rd. San Marino, CA 91108
626.405.3453 | tearoom@huntington.org
https://huntington.org/dining/tea-room
Is it indoors or outdoors?
Both. While the gardens are obviously outdoors, there is seating both indoors and out.
What about parking?
It’s free and there’s plenty of it (including bike racks). The lot is massive so depending on where you park, it may be a little walk to the entrance. Once you get inside it’s still a 15 min walk to the tea room so be sure come about 20-30 minutes prior to your reservation.
Anything else I need to know?
You have to get a ticket for the gardens (in advance) in order to get to the Tea Room. You can do that here.
You can make your Tea Room reservation at OpenTable or by emailing tearoom@huntington.org
It was a cold and gloomy day as I approached the gardens on a Sunday in late January. I was, of course, dressed for high tea (which for me is more sexy witch than prim & proper Brit, so feel free to be yourself when it comes to being “dressy”) but it was a cold day and I probably should have dressed more appropriately for the weather. Either way, I love an excuse to feel fancy in the daytime and it was nice walking into the vast gardens dressed for afternoon tea, despite the grey skies and my chilly bones. Had this been a date, it would have been a good excuse to snuggle up arm in arm.
The entrance to the gardens is the most bustling area between the ticketing office, gift shop, coffee shop and several places to sit and take a load off after wandering the grounds. I didn’t do much research before my visit, because that’s how I like to roll, but I do read the fine print and the Rose Garden Tea Room does a good job laying out some things you need to know when you book your reservation; you need a ticket, and it’s gonna be schlep.
I originally intended to walk the grounds and then make my way to the tea room, but as life would have it, I was running late and had to make a b-line for the rose gardens. Which wasn’t exactly easy. I’m good with maps, which they do provide to those who want them, but they’re designed upside down and not very intuitively so not great when you’re in a rush like I was.
I recommend giving yourself at least 30 minutes, as opposed to the suggested 15.
When I arrived at the tea room one friend had been waiting while another was on the way. They won’t seat you until your entire party arrives so if you’re going on a double date, be prepared to wait.
Altadena is close to Huntington Gardens which meant air quality was a concern due to the ongoing the wildfires so we opted to sit inside, though the outdoor garden seating with its big white columns overlooking roses looked divine. My email communication with the tea room while making arrangements was on point, which I find to be a rare thing in hospitality, especially when using something like OpenTable to make reservations (remember, you need two reservations, one for the tea room via OpenTable and one for the gardens via The Huntington Gardens website). They were responsive with our reservation changes in terms of numbers and our concerns regarding air quality. Everything was perfect when we arrived.
If you’re planning to go for a birthday or anniversary, I have no doubt they’ll be helpful in accommodating your desires.
We were walked around the corner into the bright yellow tea room that was set with a fresh rose on every table. At 1:30p on a Saturday, the room was half-full and at a volume akin to a country club. I’m sure they were playing music, but it was so low I don’t remember hearing it and I couldn’t hear anything when checking my videos. All of which is to say, the other guests prooooobably heard everything we were saying about our kinky escapades, the sex ed classes we’re teaching and jokes that were definitely not family friendly (we tried our best to keep it low).
We sat down and were immediately presented with both a regular menu and a gluten free menu, and offered the option to explore the vegan menu, as I’d noted in the reservation that we had some dietary restrictions. The biggest decision we had to make was whether we wanted Traditional Tea or Huntington Tea with the difference being that Huntington Tea comes with a glass of bubbles, a lobster roll and a bonbon.
Obviously we chose to go with the menu that comes with bubbles.
Within minutes of placing our orders, our server reemerged with bubbles and shortly after that we were presented with our tea selection and scones, both gluten free (two sweet scones) and gluten full (one savory and one sweet scone) as well as a selection of butters and one tasty jam. Our tower of finger sandwiches and deserts came with perfect timing just as we took the last bites of our scones, as if the server had been monitoring us in the least creepy way possible.
Two towers were placed before us, one larger tower for the two who were eating the gluten and one smaller tower for me, gluten free. Our server took us through every teeny tiny sandwich and all of the respective deserts and left us to our bubbles, our tea and our towers.
The sandwiches were delicious (especially the lobster roll that comes with the Huntington Tea option), but I have to admit the gluten free bread was lacking. It probably would have been worth the belly ache, but I’m glad I decided to favor my body. It was hard to save room for deserts, but thankfully we did because they were worth it (especially the gluten free ones).
Somehow I’ve gotten this far without mentioning the tea, which was absolutely delightful. I, like Arabella Huntington, am a sucker for a rose, in any form, so I opted for the Huntington Rose Blend and it did not disappoint.
As we left the tea room we were able to gather in front of the roses for one last group shot before we went our separate ways and because the tea room and gardens were quite busy despite the gloomy skies, it was easy to find ourselves a photographer.
Following our afternoon tea I spent an hour, or as long as I could take in a light jacket and heels on a cold day, wandering the grounds. A wander around the gardens is a great way to digest, take in the plants, and your hot date, so make sure you block in that time. I didn’t wander around long enough to talk about the gardens themselves, so I’ll save that for a future post.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As far as wholesome afternoon dates go, this is a good one. Since many visitors to the gardens never step foot in the tea rooms, it’s a sweet escape from the outdoors that offers a taste of English culture. If you like to get dressed up (I see you, with your lace gloves and tiny hat), this could make for a very cute day date with a good excuse for an impromptu photo shoot in the rose garden itself.
It’s a shame I wasn’t dressed well for a cold day, and I had somewhere to be. If that wasn’t the case, I would have loved to have wandered the grounds with a blanket and a book (or a journal) and spend the rest of my day in nature.
Until our next adventure,
xx
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