Beyond the Yorkshire Tea: Is Betty's Afternoon Tea Worth the Hype?

👍 What works

• Great Location

• Fantastic Food

• Belmont Room Is Beautiful.

👎 What doesn’t

• Teas a little too weak

• Service not as attentive as expected

• Belmont Room is a little hidden for first time visitors

Betty's York

A York watcher sits outside Betty's

About Betty’s York

Betty’s York is a world-famous café and tea room located at 6-8 St. Helen’s Square in York. Established in 1936 by baker and chocolatier Frederick Belmont.
Belmont was so enamoured with the Art Deco interior design of the RMS Queen Mary ocean liner, he decided to style Betty’s in the same luxury. The wood paneling and opulent interior survive virtually untouched to this day.

One of Betty’s York’s most renowned features is their quintessentially English afternoon tea, which we decided to go and check out.

Our Experience

We booked our afternoon tea via Betty's website. Booking was easy and connected to the Open Table app. This made managing the booking very easy. During booking, we made a note about our food preferences, such as one veggie option and specifically no fish.

Just before our arrival at Betty’s, we received a text asking to confirm we were on the way and received a subsequent notification that the table was ready. All very efficient.

A note for first time visitors: the main queue outside Betty’s is for the tea room and shop. For Afternoon Tea, you just need to skip the queue by walking round to the side entrance and walking up the stairs.

Once we arrived at Betty’s York, we made our way up the impressive staircase to find a helpful manager waiting for us. He led us into the Belmont room and to our table just in front of the pianist.

The Belmont room is truly impressive, Looking around the room, we could see exquisite wood paneling and decoration, inspired by the luxury liner Queen Mary. Each wall covered in bespoke wood panelling. Wooden carved and framed images together with inlaid images made out of wood adorn the walls. Tables are neatly prepared for visitors. The Art Deco style even flows through to the doors whose windows are in the shape of the letter B with a chrome silver trim. The centrepiece of the room is a dark mini grand piano. The pianist was excellent and played a good range of music suitable for background ambience. The room oozed decadence and hinted at an era that is being lost to time.

The Pianist in the Belmont Room

The manager explained how long we had the table (1.5 hours) and encouraged us to try their range of 15 different types of tea during our afternoon visit. Yes you read that correctly, 15 types of tea! The manager also double checked our food options and noted that the only fish on the menu was a Salmon sandwich that can simply be swapped for a duplicate of one of the other options - perfect.

Tea is Served

Shortly afterwards, we received our traditional starters of a Yorkshire pea and herb salad and Yorkshire sausage roll with black pepper. The tiers of sandwiches and desserts followed. The manager then talked us through what was presented. He was very enthusiastic about the Yuzu and Raspberry Slice.

We then tucked into our gorgeous afternoon tea. The pea and herb salad was slightly overpowered by what can only be described as an onion infused foam, and the Sausage roll was cooked and seasoned to perfection.

Yorkshire sausage roll

Yorkshire pea and herb salad

Each sandwich that followed was a taste sensation, our favourites being Coronation Chicken and the Egg Mayo being our favourites. We found the yellow tumeric bread, together with the spices in the coronation chicken very complimentary to each other, and not over powering. The egg mayonnaise and pea shoots on caramelised onion bread tasted sublime.

Then it was onto the scones, the lemon and poppy seed one being a surprise hit. We then opted for a second round of teas and coffee.

A note on the teas.

Betty’s offering of 15 teas is curated to accompany the Afternoon Tea experience. JJ opted forthe darker teas that in reality are not that dark. Even after standing for a while, the tea was weaker than expected— but refreshing. To JJ’s shock, I opted for a herbal Lemongrass tea that was exactly as described and a great palate cleanser, but on the second round of drinks, I reverted to type and asked for the coffee. I quickly found out that despite being in a cafetière, I needed to use the supplied strainer when pouring the coffee!

Then it was onto the dessert tier. First up, the Swiss Dark and White Chocolate Mousse. To our surprise, this looked like a solid chocolate, we thought it may have a mousse centre; however, the whole thing is a mousse; how did they do that? Then we both had differing opinions on our next favourite dessert. I loved the sourness and acidity of the Gooseberry Tartlet, while JJ appreciated the lightness and sweetness of the manager’s favourite, Yuzu and Raspberry Slices.

Overall, the desserts were amazing!

The only downside to our visit…during our Afternoon Tea, a waitress asked if we wanted more drinks; we asked for water. It didn't arrive by the time we finished, paid up, and left. Obviously realising the mistake, the waitress approached us to apologise for not bringing it. It was no massive deal as we were both full of tea and coffee by this point anyway. The other observation when we sat down was that we were asked if we were celebrating anything special. Yes, a birthday. Other tables had ‘surprise’ birthday cakes brought out but not us? Did we get forgotten, is it something we had to book? Not sure, we paid and left.

Overall,

Our visit to Betty’s for an afternoon tea experience hit all our expectations with lovely food and great ambience at a comparable cost to alternatives. We paid £44.95 each.

Menu

Savoury Selection Vegetarian

Red pepper choux.
Yorkshire pea and herb salad

Sandwiches Vegetarian

Basil houmous and cucumber on white bread

Egg mayonnaise and pea shoots on caramelised onion bread

Coronation chickpea on turmeric bread

Avocado, chilli and lime cream cheese on wholemeal bread

Savoury Selection Non - Vegetarian

Yorkshire sausage roll with black pepper

Red pepper choux

Sandwiches Non- Vegetarian

Coronation Yorkshire chicken on turmeric bread

Basil houmous and cucumber on white bread

Egg mayonnaise and pea shoots on caramelised onion bread

MINIATURE SCONES

Lemon and poppy seed scone

Plain scone

Served with Yorkshire strawberry preserve and clotted cream.

MINIATURE CAKE SELEC TION

Gooseberry Tartlet.

Yuzu and Raspberry Slice

Swiss Dark and White Chocolate Mousse

Words by Garry Llewellyn
Edited by JJ
Phots Garry @ Lichfield Photographic

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About Garry

I’ve been writing in‑depth reviews since 2020 and I’m a proud supporter of independent cinema. I’m a lifelong Sci‑Fi fan, and I probably spend far too much time photographing anything that catches my eye.

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