The Drawing Room — Restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake

The Drawing Room is okay, but I've had better afternoon tea experiences elsewhere. I was so looking forward to this celebration and trying afternoon tea in Niagara on the Lake. Unfortunately, I left disappointed with this experience at The Drawing Room. I've been numerous places for afternoon tea and this ranks the lowest. The main thing going for this place is the ambience of the space itself. In fact, this is what enticed me to try tea at the Drawing Room in the first place.

We visited in July for a birthday celebration. Even though this was indicated in our online reservation, the wait staff did not give any birthday wishes nor include a candle or anything to make the service special for a birthday. We've seen candles placed on one of the desserts at other places that serve afternoon tea, which is a really nice touch.

Upon arrival, nobody was at the counter to seat us. Eventually another party came, and both us and the other party had to wait several minutes before we were acknowledged. At that point, we were checked in but not seated. It took another few minutes before we were seated.

In the reservation, I explicitly requested a table by the window in the reservation, which I'd made several weeks in advance. We were not seated by a window. Right away, we noticed two dark brown stains on our tablecloth which was disappointing.

The host was very abrupt, our server was friendly. However, the service was quite disruptive. We were seated near the entrance to a private party room, and a few minutes into our visit we were informed by our server that a party would be coming in shortly and that people may try using the entrance which could be disruptive to us. She asked if we wanted to move. While this was thoughtful of her, I was unsure why they didn't close that entrance since the official entrance into that space was directly accessible from a hallway off the hotel lobby (versus having guests enter the Drawing Room and then into the side room). This was fine, but then the hostess came over and abruptly and asked us to move our table. At this point, the service was simply disruptive. They could have planned for this before seating us.

Our tiers of savouries and sweets were brought over before my partner finished his cheese plate, which made for a crowded table. The cheeses were very good and served with lots of fruit (berries, grapes). My cocktail sat around for a while before being served (I could see it sitting on a table near the entrance). In terms of the prepared food, the sandwiches were okay but nothing impressive. Very simple and easy to make at home. They were also very cold as if they'd been stored- prepared- in the fridge and were just taken out. The croissant used for one of the sandwiches was dry. The scones were very big and dry, which was disappointing. I've never tasted a scone that dry before at afternoon tea. I didn't finish mine and it's usually my second favourite part after the savouries. The desserts were overly sweet; for example, the macaron looked very pretty but just tasted like plain sugar. There were no special English desserts such as eccles cake or Battenberg cake. Very North American style dessert tier.

Doubt I'll visit again, but figured I'd leave a review for others considering going here. I would not recommend for a special occasion, and I'll opt to go elsewhere where I know the food is fresh and pastries more diverse, authentic, and less sweet. And where the service is more attentive, especially for a...

The reason I love this afternoon tea place the most is that they serve at an incredibly slow pace. This actually benefits us in many ways. We can hone our strong will while waiting and enduring hunger, lower our blood sugar, and burn our fat.

They will first serve you the tea you ordered, and the process of having tea is also the process of waiting for food. This process takes about 50 minutes. By drinking tea, you will feel full and less eager for the desserts to come, further reducing the possibility of gaining weight.

During the wait, you can immerse yourself in this royal-style restaurant, elevating your level of elegance, imagining yourself as a member of the royal team, pursuing spiritual elegance rather than desserts.

When the food finally arrives, you might feel a bit dizzy, but you can tell yourself that you haven't been starved; on the contrary, you are no longer hungry, just a bit dizzy.

Facing the food in front of you, you are no longer so eager. Please pick up a small cookie. Um, its taste is actually similar to Tim Hortons, and it's not as delicious. As for the muffin, biscuit, and the pile of sweet carbohydrates, they are not much different from the cookies and muffins you buy in boxes at the supermarket. Maybe you still don't understand why it takes so long to prepare this bunch of things you usually disdain. When you're about to complain, you can't muster the anger. Just start the eat. So you start eating elegantly.

When you finish three cookies and a muffin, you start feeling a little nauseous because the tea is also sweet. Your mouth is full of sweetness, and now you need something salty, like Korean spicy cabbage, kimchi, onion, scallion, spicy green pepper, pickles with traditional Korean or Chinese salty dipping sauce, etc. But when you look at the palace-like interior decoration, the royal patterns embellishing the teacups, you suddenly loathe your dirty and vulgar thoughts. You hate yourself for not being elegant enough, for still being so tacky.

You look at the calm and elegant people around you, and you start to doubt yourself, wondering if you are a lower-class person.

Well, it's time to pay the bill. Hmm, the price is exactly twenty times what you would spend at Tim Hortons, and it takes twenty times longer than eating at Tim Hortons. But even so, you have had an extremely perfect experience. You have experienced the aristocratic afternoon tea, and the group of people around you, smiling lightly, nodding to each other, which is incomparable to the level of Tim Hortons.

I highly recommend this afternoon tea restaurant...

I'm writing this while me and my wife still sitting inside the restaurant. We had a reservation at 1pm and arrived at 12:54pm. We spoke with one of the lady said we have a reservation, she said our waitress will come and grab us.

5 minutes later I heard they are calling other people's name, then I went inside said we had an reservation at 1pm. A nice lady asked for my name and said "now I marked you as arrived". I went back and started thinking why the other lady didn't asked my name?

After we checked in, nobody come to us after 10 minutes, after taking my order, we were just sitting and waiting for our tea. Another 10 minutes later, two ladies sit down next to our table, they got greeted and served before we get our tea.

About 1:40 pm, we were still waiting for our food while the ladies next to us finished a tray already. My wife becomes impatient and upset.

We were lucky enough so I can see obviously our food tray was just inside the kitchen but our server was "busy" enough just checking other guests.

Thank you for ruining our day and I will not come back. According to other social media, this thing seems only happening to east Asian people. I don't know if that's the reason.

Just now, by 2:21pm, our waitress came asked if we need a box for the remaining. Great! Thanks for checking without any smile...