你好！ Filoli is an estate, primarily mansion & garden, that was built in 1917 that is now open to the (paying) public. "Originally built as a private residence in 1917, Filoli was opened to the public in 1975 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The property is considered one of the finest remaining country estates of the 20th century, featuring a 54,000+ square-foot Georgian revival-style mansion, 16 acres of exquisite English Renaissance gardens, a 6.8-acre Gentleman’s Orchard, and hundreds of acres of Natural Lands with 6 distinct ecosystems and nature trails." - Filoli's about page
Entrance to the estate is required to go to the Quail Cafe, which offers a walk-in afternoon tea for two. For a non-member adult, assuming no discounts apply, entrance is currently $36. (Entrance is free for members, which also gives a discount to the cafe, so keep that in mind if you plan on going multiple times a year).
According to their website, you cannot book reservations for the cafe. However, I have never seen both the outside and inside seating full, and have always gotten lucky with finding a table. They also say on the menu that they can make it gluten free if you give them a 24 hour notice, so I'm a bit confused on the "no reservations" – I'm assuming there is an exception for allergies, or the no reservations is outdated, or the allergen notice is simply untrue at present. It's also possible it's just to call to verify they have the ingredients and are prepared..? I'd call them to ask what's the deal.
PLEASE NOTE: This review is for Filoli Afternoon Tea For Two. Here's a link to their PDF menu (page 4). It is only available after 1 PM for walk-ins. This is not a review for their fancy reservation tea service.
Review
The tea is $69 without tax for two people. Not per person. That is rather cheap for afternoon tea, usually for two people it is double the cost. Again though, you do have to pay for entrance to the estate as well, but I'd assume you'd make use of that fact. That makes it $141 for two people, but really I'd assume you're also going to walk around the estate and such. I went to the estate and happened to get tea, not the other way around, so I don't count the cost.
The tea being designed for two people does mean you would practically need your group to be in multiples of two, or three not very hungry people. Not to mention some savories are given in odd quantities, hence why I state the quantities of every item in this review. It is given to you on large wooden tray that hosts the tea and tier.
It is walk-ins only according to their website and only available after 1 PM, as I mentioned above.
Savories
Egg Salad On Dark Rye (4x) In my notes I quite literally just wrote "egg salad-y" and that the bread was not a bad choice, and it "didn't taste like bad rye." I recall it being a rather unnotable egg salad, as in there was no distinct mustard taste or real texture or anything.
Smoked Salmon Pinwheel (4x) The first one I had tasted like I had just popped an entire smoked salmon in my mouth without anything else, while the second tasted pretty salty so I could indeed taste the capers. The wrap or whatever that thing is called didn't overpower the salmon and make it dry as they usually do.
Cucumber Watercress & Cream Cheese (3x) Cucumber on bread. The cream cheese was so little it may as well have not been there. It tasted fine for cucumbers on bread, and I suppose I'm glad the cream cheese was there even though you couldn't taste it at all. It was like a fine layer of butter on bread, but like when you get breakfast and buttered toast on the side and you have to debate like "is there butter on here??" but it isn't dry so it must?
Herbed Free-Range Curry Chicken Salad With Puff Pastry (3x) Looking at the name I'm not sure what part was puff pastry? It was on bread, maybe it was inside or they were simply out? Either way, I personally didn't like it much, but I ate a whole one so it wasn't bad or anything. It was a kind of random addition to the repertoire? It also wasn't a super strong curry flavor, I recall thinking "there's turmeric in here, yeah." It's most likely supposed to emulate Indian curry, if you're curious. Again, wasn't that bad and wasn't tasteless. I also did not eat the sprouts on top.
My notes say "Indifferent on savory. It succeeds and they didn't taste too bad" as my conclusion.
Sweets
Mini Scones (2x) In this case they were lemon with a little jar of strawberry preserves. They were very lemon. We both agreed they weren't really scones, but you can't quite call them anything other than scones really. They were pretty oily to the touch but didn't taste oily. They were relatively dry as you might expect but not super dry to the point of being hard. The lemon didn't compliment the jam. I didn't finish the scone, but I usually don't.
The rest are, and I quote: A Seasonal Variety of Mini Desserts and Petit-Fours so do keep that in mind.
Large Petit-Four (1x white, 1x magenta-ish) Vanilla cake with frosting in between covered in white chocolate. Exactly what you'd expect from that description. They were good. The magenta-ish one clearly had a layer of jam, but I couldn't taste it at all.
Macarons (1x Lemon 1x Some Berry?) My real-time paraphrasing of my mother after eating the lemon one: "Could use a little more lemon flavor. Filling is thin. Meringue is very well done. Good crunch then it's soft, not too soft." My thought were the same for the berry one, except I couldn't tell what berry it was meant to be. My assumption was raspberry, or it might've been some kind of wildberry though raspberry is more likely.
Green Tea Cake Thing (1x) Tastes how you'd expect. A little dry. Whatever is on the top of it is jelly? I wrote that it was "kinda like mirror glaze on cakes in texture." I didn't finish it.
Espresso Cup-looking Thing (1x) I didn't eat it. All my notes were: "Mousse. Tastes like coffee" and a quote of: "This is the best because it has the most flavor" and I recall her stating that even without the coffee flavor it'd still be the best or something along those lines.
Tea
I forgot to write my thoughts on the tea in the moment. They give you a pot of hot water, so you can likely order a different tea from your companion. We just ordered the jasmine green tea, and it was about as you'd expect if I recall. The sugar (cubes) are on a table by the napkins and such, not on the tray or anything, so you had to walk to get them. I do not remember if they had honey, but I'd be surprised if they did not.
They also have free dispensers of just cold water, one with fruit one without.
Thoughts
I didn't feel like it was too much food at all like many tea services, but it was approaching that so it wasn't too little either.
Near everything generally needed more filling though. I would suggest making no changes to the salmon, and that's about the end of my notes. It's a fairly inoffensive tea, it is afternoon tea and it's in a pretty garden and not bad. There isn't too much to say.
It was absolutely worth the price, assuming you exclude the cost of entry to Filoli. I didn't go for the tea, I went for Filoli, so I did. And frankly they likely assume that as well.
I don't believe in star ratings, but maybe like a 7/10. 6.5? I'm also bad at star ratings. There is a reason why I am not a real food reviewer.
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