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Afternoon tea service rolling out this weekend at La Petite Dauphine
Scones with Devonshire cream, fresh berries, savory tea sandwiches, canapés and treats being served at La Petite Dauphine's afternoon tea service.
Afternoon tea service rolling out this weekend at La Petite Dauphine
One can never get enough tea, especially when there’s an air of civilization to the proceedings, something swellegant. One-time Le Bec-Fin-er David Smith opened La Petite Dauphine (2029 Walnut St.) in a brownstone back in June, in part, for that very reason. Along with serving illy coffee and morning pastries for take out, Smith reports that his weekdays are filled with the ladies who lunch while his weekends are packed with hungry brunchers.
It’s his newest development though that’s most fascinating, something he’s planned since La Petite Dauphine’s start. “The tea service was part of the original plan,” says Smith. La Petite Dauphine is meant to be a chic, relaxed space that dials into a younger demographic. LPD is filled with women from the early twenties into their fifties and the guys who want to hang out with them.”
Starting this weekend – November 3rd and 4th, Saturday and Sunday, at 3:30 p.m. – Smith will offer afternoon tea with a selection of specialty brews and scores of scones along with Devonshire cream, fresh berries, savory tea sandwiches, canapés and treats from a dessert cart - all by reservation only. The reservation is necessary apparently from the fact that spots are filling up quickly due to Smith’s non-stuffy seating policy. This isn’t the tea sessions prevalent at tony hotels where lace and proper manners are de rigeur. “It’s not blue hairs or a pretentious tea service,” says Smith. “We want to have a cool urban space where you have the things at tea that a nice hotel would have without that sense of formality.”
Smith says there are times and a place for teas at Four Seasons and the Rittenhouse Hotel, but there you have the feeling that you have to sit up straight and put on your Sunday best. With us, it’s chilled. We have a yoga studio across the street. We expect that people will go and do power yoga then come to us for a relaxing pot of tea with finger sandwiches and the like.”
The $26 prix-fixe weekend teas which go to seven-day service from Thursday, Dec. 13 through Monday, Dec. 24. features a dessert cart with twelve or more desserts (“we wheel it around and let you go to town”) and sandwiches that change from week to week. This weekend, Smith will have smoked salmon on black bread after that a cucumber sandwich on brioche and crème freche, French ham and Dijon on a baquette and a chicken curry salad on croissant with argula and a cranberry chutney.” Along with changing the sandwich menu, the rich selection of teas can be found on their website
“It’s not formal but it is certainly indulgent,” says Smith.
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