Villa Royale Antiques & Tea Room — Attraction in Ho Chi Minh City

After hearing very good and positive feedbacks about the hightea set at Villa Royal, we finally decided to pay it a visit on my husband’s birthday.

As my better half is Brits and he was so looking forward to this (we haven’t done a proper one ever since the social distancing) and also thought that’d be a great experience for my daughter.

I tried to message them a few times in order to reserve table 2 days before today plus calling the number provided on their Facebook page. But there’s no luck of having someone seemed care to reply !

Anyway, we got there, the waiter set us a very back corner table, and I asked whether we can have more spacious area since our daughter would want to explore the place. However, he said that the big sofa was only for group of 5-7 people, but next to it was a big dining table and there’s only a couple having their tea.

We still kept our head cool as it’s my husband’s day. The waiter gave us 15 mins to study their menu and after placing orders, he came back and asked if we could be able to order something small as they’re afraid that the kitchen would not be able to prepare in such time !? So I asked him if they had to bake everything from starch and the answer was “No” , he kept telling me that it would take around 15 mins to prepare the set for us and we wouldn’t have “enough time” to enjoy our tea because they’re closed at 5PM!

So I confirmed to him “ what time was your last order?!” And “ even though we still want to order and still have our food, you’ll just ask us to pay and then kick us out?” ,” if so then why you didn’t inform us when we arrived or having no such reply to your customers as they wanted to be clear?” He told me to search on their page or come here to reserve table! Like WTH is this “reply” I really expected more from this kind of place as it’s not cheap here. We had to leave as that was not acceptable and our daughter started bursting into tears because we had planned for this before the day and how much she was hoping to enjoy

very bad customer service and Despite amazing pastries, cakes, tea, we definitely don’t recommend coming here or ever...

2 pot of tea and a set of scones with Cream and strawberry jam

Good

1. Nice ambiance, charming great place to have tea
2. Good service from staff and very attentive
3. Good tea selections,

Need improvement

1. Owner/Manager would need to improve his public relation. BUT what is noticed is the he has a selective reaction to type of customers.(Maybe its just me not creating a good impression when entering the premises)
2. Scones is a bit tad underdone due to the inner core still have a faint flour taste and texture I would expect the oven temp to be a but low but not of a big fuss. (maybe I just have a different taste)

We did go around taking pictures and he did mention due to Covid and we are not permitted to move around Which the cafe was quite empty with only 1 customer. I do see his point but What i do not see is When you open a cafe this beautiful you expect your customer to stay put and not appreciate the beauty of it? Your customers are your best advertisements. UNLESS you do intent to cater for a selected few and not over all type of guests.

Over all I would feel the place is great and the price is expected as the location is not cheap. If you are going there to just sit and drink tea this would be a good place and if you are going there for some photo session I would...

In short, this place has delicious food, attentive service, and a cozy atmosphere with a Brunswick-like vibe (Melbourne, Australia).

We spontaneously dropped by for afternoon tea around 4 pm and Linh warmly greeted us, giving us some recommendations.

We tried the mango cheesecake, carrot cake, mango smoothie, and mixed berry smoothie, and they were all delightful. The flavors were well balanced without being overpowering.

Villa Royale reminded us of Brunswick, a trendy suburb in Melbourne. So, if you're an Aussie looking for a home away from home without the overly hipster service of a South Yarra suburb (similar to Thao Dien), I highly recommend stopping by to say hello to David and Linh while enjoying a cuppa...