Tag Archives: Cafe

The Tilted Teapot replaces East Redstone Antiques

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Last year East Redstone Antiques, one of the tearooms in my little guidebook, had to close.

For a while the premises they had occupied, near Coupar Angus in Perthshire, lay empty, but earlier this year a new tearoom popped up to take its place – The Tilted Teapot:


The other day the delightful assistants and I tootled along there to partake of a little luncheon.


Soup of the day was tomato and we all chose to have it:

I must say, it was jolly tasty.

After the soup, delightful assistant no.1 and myself opted to dive straight in to the sweet treats, while delightful assistant no.2 continued with the savouries.

He chose a tuna mayonnaise roll, which came with salad, crisps and coleslaw and a wonderfully soft and fluffy white roll. He was very pleased with everything on the plate and ate it all up like a good boy:

While he was eating that, delightful assistant no.1 and I browsed the cake cabinet:

And found something you don’t normally see on a tearoom menu:

After some indecision, I went for a piece of carrot cake:

Which I washed down with a very smooth and enjoyable cup of decaf coffee:

Delightful assistant no.1 went for a rhubarb tart, which was liberally decorated with icing sugar and had a little air hole in the top that made me think of Inuit fishing through the Arctic ice:

Both assistants opted for tea, which came in a large teapot covered with a very impressive knitted teacosy:

The teacups were vast, holding about the same as a reasonably large mug might hold:

Although the antiques that previously filled this tearoom had gone, there were some locally crafted items for sale in the area we walked through to get to the tearoom:

My favourite things were the small and colourful knitteds, made by a local lady who can’t see to read knitting patterns any more and so created these without any guidance:

I wished I knew a baby who would fit into this delightful little mauve number:

Afternoon tea at Bonhard

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After posting about the closure of one of the fine tearooms in my tearoom guidebook recently, I think it’s high time I redressed the balance by writing about another tearoom that had closed but has now reopened. Hurrah!

This tearoom lies only about 3 miles from the one that recently closed, on the outskirts of the city of Perth (the Scottish one).

It’s one of these wonderful pairings of a tearoom and another business, in this case a plant nursery. One of the utterly splendid things about having a tearoom in a plant nursery is that you can stick tables outside and, on a sunny day, your customers can soak up the rays surrounded by beautiful plants. Thus, they are refreshed both internally and externally, so to speak.

My delightful assistant and I took advantage of this situation one sunny day a couple of months ago when we trotted off to the Bonhard Nursery and Garden Centre:

It being afternoon tea time, we took afternoon tea, in the form of tea and scones with jam and cream:

My delightful assistant had ordinary black tea and a fruit scone, while I chose Lady Grey tea and a cherry scone. The fruit scone certainly looked good (and I’m assured it was delightful) but I thought my cherry scone was an outstanding specimen:

It was absolutely stuffed with cherries:

Paired with jam and cream and a lovely Lady Grey, it was simply delicious:

Feeling well pleased with ourselves after our repast, we enjoyed a mooch round the plants:

We left the garden just as dark storm clouds were rolling in:

I’ve since been back to Bonhard on a colder day when I sat indoors instead and had a hot brunch, and I can report that it too was excellent.

Tearoom closure

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I’m very sorry to say that one of the tearooms in my book, “Tearoom Delights: a little guide to delightful tearooms of Perthshire, Angus and Dundee” has recently had to close.

If you have a copy of the book, it’s no.18 on the map, East Redstone Antiques.

The ladies who ran East Redstone rented the premises and when their lease came up for renewal this year the owner insisted on a 3 year renewal. They didn’t feel able to commit to such a long lease in these uncertain times and, despite trying to negotiate a shorter lease, in the end had to accept that the shop and tearoom would close.

I’m not sure if they’re going to try and reopen it elsewhere, when I spoke to them about it some weeks ago they didn’t seem too convinced of the likelihood of that, but I live in hope.

It was such a fantastic wee tearoom with lots of atmosphere and very friendly service, not to mention outstanding lemon drizzle cake and excellent tea.

For the time being at least, there is no more East Redstone Antiques, but if I ever hear of it reopening I’ll be posting about it on here.

Here are a couple of photos to remember it by:

The beautiful antique shop at East Redstone, as was

A superbly lemony lemon drizzle cake and a first rate cup of Yorkshire tea:

A very happy memory: lemon drizzle cake and a nice cup of tea

Published!

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Just a quick post to celebrate my first book’s publication today! A last, a bit later than anticipated, it’s arrived, in lots of boxes:

Copies can be ordered via ebay or from me (teacups@sent.com), and I hope to get some into bookshops and tearooms within the coming weeks.

More details to follow soon.