You’ll have had your tearooms

Tucked away under an arch at the west end of Argyle Street, in Glasgow, The Hidden Lane Tearoom is an unlikely location to find the nation’s definitive afternoon tea experience.

But that is the honour it has been handed by one of the nation’s leading tourism experts, who has hailed that most English of civilised rituals as Scotland’s latest booming trend.

Peter Irvine has devoted a new section of his best-selling Scotland the Best guide – first published 18 years ago – to celebrating “the extent of the revival of this English tradition”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He has hailed afternoon tea as the “new spa experience” after discovering a growing number of tearooms opening up and long-established businesses offering the “indulgent” treat.

And he has rated 26-year-old Kirsty Fitzgerald’s 18-month-old tearoom, which is hidden from view down a back lane, alongside the likes of the afternoon tea experience on offer at the Turnberry Resort, in Ayrshire, the famous Palm Court at the Balmoral Hotel, in Edinburgh, and Greywalls, a lavish country house hotel in East Lothian.

Irvine, who has described Ms Fitzgerald’s vintage tearoom as a combination of “old style and very new style”, said afternoon tea was being embraced by new generations who were shunning coffee shop chains and “the march of the muffins”.

Irvine, who mentions dozens of tearooms and coffee shops in his new guide, out on 8 December, said he was initially bamboozled at afternoon tea being embraced as a relatively inexpensive feel-good luxury in the face of the economic downturn.

“It’s strange as it doesn’t fit in with the whole ethos of healthy living these days, and you do wonder how these places can be so busy in the middle of the afternoon. There has been a huge proliferation of coffee shops over the last ten years or so, so that they are now in every high street and airport, but this is something different.

“This is about proper afternoon tea, and very good, fresh home baking. But the best tearooms have an individuality about them, like Clarinda’s on the Royal Mile, which has amazing home baking. The Hidden Lane Tearoom is as good as you can get anywhere, even though everything is baked on the premises in a tiny kitchen.

“There is definitely a feel-good factor going on with afternoon tea. It feels indulgent, it does not cost the earth and although it’s undoubtedly mainly a female thing, it does seem to be about people wanting to give themselves a treat and feel a bit indulgent, even though they maybe don’t have the disposable income that they used to have.”

Ms Fitzgerald said: “Afternoon tea was a real life passion of mine, I had a big collection of china tea sets at home, and I just noticed a bit of a trend happening a couple of years ago.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Although afternoon tea is definitely about feeling indulgent and is a bit regal, it’s pretty affordable for a treat.”

Meanwhile, Irvine has declared that the tourism industry is in rude health after another nine-month stretch travelling the country and writing his latest book. He has rated Glasgow’s new Riverside Museum the best attraction in the city, while he believes the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, in Ayr, is “worthy of his international stature and appeal”.

Related topics: