Review: Afternoon Tea at Cafe Renaissance in Vienna, VIrginia

Note from Dani: This review is based off a private event experience and may differ from the normal Cafe Renaissance afternoon tea events.

Xak and I have several afternoon tea experiences over the course of 5 years, and none of them have been cheap. Most tea rooms we visit average around $60~ per person. Multiply that by 2, add tip, and the cost of parking, and you’ve now paid enough to cover about 12 Chipotle burritos and maybe even some guacamole.

So when our company announced they were hosting an afternoon tea event, we were ecstatic. Afternoon tea on the company dime? Sign us up!

For this particular event, the afternoon tea was being hosted at a restaurant named Cafe Renaissance in Vienna, Virginia. I have never been here before either for a meal or afternoon tea, so I was thrilled for a chance to visit a new tea place. Luckily, I was able to cross it off our list thanks to our June 6, 2024 visit.

About Cafe Renaissance

Cafe Renaissance is a family owned restaurant that began serving French/European cuisine 30 years ago. It’s mere steps away from other well known Vienna locations like The Virginian Kitchen, Jammin Java, and the now closed Amphora (RIP 3 AM runs). Since Cafe Renaissance’s main focus is dinner time, they don’t open until after 3 PM. This explains why I never had a chance to visit during my Maple Avenue breakfast walks.

Special events include monthly wine dinners and afternoon tea events which are only held on the last Saturday of the event, or in our case, a private weekday event.

Reservations for dinner are typically made online through Open Table or by phone call, but tea reservations are only handled through calling.

Exterior and Parking

Cafe Renaissance shares a parking lot with the other Glyndon Park establishments. There’s limited parking spaces directly in front of the entrance, but there’s a good amount of free space behind the back. Everyone in my group had plenty of parking options.

There are several potted plants lining the side and a brick retaining wall of flowers leading you to the entrance that read “Fine Dining” on the door underneath the restaurant’s sign. From the outside, the restaurant looks like the other buildings and casual eateries in the strip mall.

Tea Room and Decor

Walking into the foyer, there’s quite a lot to look at on the entrance wall including framed pictures and awards and a large gold mirror above a console table. However once you walk into the dining room past the podium, you’ll likely be surprised at the restaurant’s dining room since it’s a lot fancier than the exterior.

Since this was a private event specifically for company employees, round tables were pushed together to allow for closer seating. The tables were adorned with real tablecloths and beautiful flower arrangements consisting of real hydrangeas and peonies (I might have touched a petal to check)

Murals, framed paintings, and wall sconces hung on a textured wall with gold trim and wainscoting, which was far different than what I expected based on the outside.

As we settled into our seats, water was served along with glasses with champagne. At most afternoon teas, champagne is available as an upcharge or part of a “Royal tea” course. I don’t drink too much alcohol outside of celebratory toasts, but I don’t mind imbibing a little when someone else is paying the bill. Tea pots were brought out to share among the table featuring two types of tea: Earl Grey with cardamom for the black tea option and a fruity, lemongrass tea for the herbal tea drinkers.

Strainers were available to place on an individual tea cup while pouring and there were fresh lemon slices and sugar cubes offered. Milk and cream were not readily available on the table, but most (including me) opted to drink the Earl Grey with just the lemon.

Drinking tea with a large group is certainly an experience that I’m not used to. With the exception of my visit to Boulder Tea House, it’s usually Xak and me and we get pots all to ourselves. I never have to share my English Breakfast with him if I don’t want to (but of course I will if he asks). Passing the tea pots around the tea table was quite difficult due to the heaviness of the pot and the heat. Since there were limited tea pots and space on the table, we stuck to passing one’s teacup down to the person closest to the pot.

Food

Scones

As everyone was taking pictures of the dining room and the table settings (including me), the owner came out carrying a tray and used tongs to plate warm scones on each of our plates.

There was no clotted cream on the table, but pats of butter and strawberry jam were available to spread on the scone, if desired. I’m not much of a butter person when it comes to dressing my scone, so I chose to eat it plain. The scone itself was more on the flaky biscuit side than the denser cream scones you’ll find at tea rooms. This doesn’t mean it tasted bad; it just means it wasn’t like a traditional cream scone.

After we finished our scones, three tiered trays came out for every pair of two at each table.

On the bottom tier were tea sandwiches including an open faced filet mignon sandwich, cucumber sandwich, and salmon. The middle and top tiers contained four total desserts including a cream puff profiterole, baklava, a linzer cookie, and chocolate mousse.

Sandwiches

The cucumber sandwich was a fairly large square (About the size of two finger sandwiches) and had an herby, spiced flavor in the cream cheese which I was happy about. The salmon sandwich was salty and served open faced with raw onions on top. I’m not a big raw onion fan (is anyone?), but I do appreciate salmon in Philly rolls, on bagels, and during tea. Cucumber sandwiches are definitely the most common item you’ll see during the afternoon tea savories course. I’ve also seen salmon sandwiches (like during my Lady Camellia visit), but this has only been a few occasions. Usually it’s during teas where you can choose the food you want. I wish more tea rooms served these, but I guess not everyone enjoys fish. The point is, salmon isn’t an uncommon type of tea sandwich.

However… I was very surprised to see an open faced filet mignon sandwich. Roast beef at tea, fine, but never almost a full sized filet mignon. It was basically the size of an entree steak served on a small bed of arugula and bread. Truthfully, the sandwich was quite difficult and awkard to eat without making a huge mess, but as a steak lover I was fine making a fool of myself in front of my coworkers. I’m not really sure why this one was open face, but no matter. I love filet mignon.

desserts

After I mentioned how awesome it was to have filet mignon during tea for the tenth time during the table conversation, we moved on to the desserts course.

Thanks to Great British Bake Off, I’ve heard the term profiterole enough to know that the more commonly known term is a cream puff. Outside of beignets, I’m not a huge fan of choux pastry (what profiteroles are made of), but I wouldn’t turn down a chocolate eclair if it was available. At most tea places I’ve visited (like my visit to Miss Minerva’s), you’ll likely see a basic cream puff: choux dough encasing pastry cream or custard.

For this particular profiterole, there was powdered sugar sprinkled on top and a normal cream filling (sadly, no chocolate). Nothing wrong with this cream puff, but it’s still not my number one choice for a tea dessert nor do I think it ever will be.

Baklava, the second dessert, is something I’ve eaten before but never at afternoon tea. It’s a layered phyllo pastry filled with nuts, like walnuts or pistachios, and a sweet syrup and will have different variations and shapes depending on the country. You’ll likely find it on the dessert menu of Greek and Turkish restaurants, among others. While the top of this baklava had the characteristic flaky phyllo pastry and the flavor tasted close to what I expected, the overall dessert was soggier than usual on the bottom which wasn’t the most pleasant. I noticed not everyone chose to eat the baklava.

The top tier’s desserts seemed more promising (maybe that’s why they were top tier 😄). Linzer cookies have Austrian roots and consist of two buttery shortbread cookies sandwiching fruit jam and sprinkled with sugar. Although they have similarities to the Viennese Whirls Xak has made in the past, one characteristic that make Linzer cookies so appealing are the distinct top cutout showcasing a preview of the appetizing jam filling.

Although I’ve had store bought Linzer cookies in the form of Jammie Dodgers, I’ve never had Linzer cookies at an actual afternoon tea nor have I ever had a homemade one. They’ve been on my “Xak to-bake” list for a while. The Linzer cookie was good and I think/hope Xak agrees we should add it to a future tea menu, especially if it’s with his homemade raspberry jam. 😋

The final dessert was chocolate mousse. I’ve had chocolate mousse now at quite a few teas (like my visit to The Tea Cart) but I still am surprised by its existence on the tea tray. I find it an interesting dessert for tea since it’s very decadent and rich on its own, and honestly I don’t really think it fits in with a lot of tea flavors. However, I’ll never complain about silky chocolate mousse being served anywhere or at any time. Even though chocolate mousse to me is basically a fancy adult pudding cup, it’s still a nice way to finish a meal. (After all, I love pudding)

Final Thoughts

I’m very grateful I had the opportunity to cross off another tea room from my list thanks to my company. I had an excellent time learning about everyone else’s afternoon tea experiences, including finding out this was some people’s very first afternoon tea. Believe it or not, I don’t necessarily go out of my way to talk about tea with my coworkers on a regular basis, so it was great to share and nerd out in an appropriate setting.

Since I didn’t pay for anything out of my own pocket, obviously the food tasted much better than normal 😄. If I think past the price though, I would say that there were certainly some aspects of the tea that I would have done a little differently such as offering additional tea flavors. Since this was a private event and we were a fairly large group, logistically it would have been impossible for everyone to have their own tea pot, but I felt like tea was definitely an afterthought and the focus seemed to be on the food. Since Cafe Renaissance is first and foremost a restaurant, this makes sense.

I am still shocked that we were all basically served filet mignons as one of the sandwiches. (Yeah!!) I imagine that the regularly scheduled afternoon tea events are handled a little differently and I am a little curious to see what that experience is like. While I may return one day (and pay my own way), there’s plenty more tea rooms that I would like to visit first before I make my way back.

If you’ve visited Cafe Renaissance, what did you think?