The Beth Chatto Tearoom - Tendring

This restaurant offers a nice variety of sandwiches and cakes, but it is on the pricier side. I was very disappointed to find out that they only accept card payments, which is why I am giving them a one-star rating. Customers should always have the choice to pay with cash. I will not be coming back here.

I recently went to this restaurant for afternoon tea and scones. I was surprised to be served the smallest amount of butter in a tiny dish, as if it had been carefully measured. The half teaspoon of jam was also served in a minuscule dish. I was disappointed that they did not provide a nice little pot of Tiptree jam like other places do, or wrapped butter portions. It seemed like they were trying to cut costs without lowering the prices.

After strolling through the gardens, we visited the café for some water, coffee, and cake. The cakes were delicious and the service from the friendly and efficient ladies was top-notch. We enjoyed our experience so much that we returned a few weeks later on our way to visit friends. We had ham and cheese toasties for lunch, followed by more delicious cakes. Yum!

After a long journey to visit the gardens our first stop was the tearooms. The choice of sandwiches was extremely disappointing. The only sandwiches with any salad in them were on gluten free bread, great if you are celiac, not so great if you’re not. The vast majority of the sandwiches were either vegetarian or vegan, again great if that is your preference but not so good if you’re not but overall nothing looked very appealing. Bland slices of bread trapped behind plastic sheeting. There were a couple of salads that looked very nice but as salad was for dinner we opted not to have those. We opted instead for panini’s what a mistake! Vile! Ham cheese tiny bit of flavourless ham with the texture of rubber paired with some tasteless unknown stringy cheese. Mozzarella, tomato and basil tasteless mozzarella, bland, anaemic tomato slices with two basil leaves. We also had a sausage roll which was as equally unpleasant to eat. There was a limited number of sauces to go with the food (no brown sauce or mustard). The staff were very helpful and pleasant and the tea was fine. We didn’t complain as there was nothing the staff could do as everything is brought in from a supplier although one has to question why. It’s a shame that the cafe is so awful because the garden is lovely and this lets it down.

We’ve been here before but the relaunch has not improved things. Do yourself a favour and buy a sandwich and a can of coke from a petrol station and have them in the garden. You’ll pay two thirds of the price and the quality will be the same. Also weirdly, the prices marked on the shelves are sometimes *more* then you’ll actually pay.