La Petite Cuillère — Restaurant in Vancouver

I was very excited to try this tea place as the food and decor looked unique and funky from the pictures online. Unfortunately, it does not live up to the photos. The decor is interesting... but is run down and dirty-- chairs are covered in scuffs and our table wobbled horribly, my partner's cushion was backwards (zipper facing out) and flat when we sat down, and my seat was so flat it was sliding off the front of the chair and very uncomfortable. You can tell how cheap all the decoration is aside from the ridiculous pink benches- these are clearly meant to be the tiktok-worthy pinnacle of the tea house experience, and truthfully they are underwhelming. Everyone working there seems very nice, but really does a poor job at making the atmosphere worthy of the price tag. The server who greeted us when we walked in was wearing a faded fast food chain t-shirt and ripped blue jeans... in a tea house where we were about to pay $60+ PER PERSON. I normally would not care about what a service person is wearing at work, but this ended up being indicative of the lack of care towards the whole experience. We were checked on once over the course of 2 1/2 hours. They never refreshed our tea and they serve it in GIANT teapots, so your leaves end up being steeped for way too long. You can remove strainer from inside, but they don't give you anywhere to put it so they clearly did not think of that, just another lack of attention to details. We had to ring the bell at the counter to pay our bill, as the counter stays empty and the kitchen is completely blocked from view by a blackout curtain... makes me wonder if they have many dine and dashers as the counter is mostly left unattended. Makes me wonder how the owner thought his staff would be able to attend to the floor when they can't see any of it??? The decorative bow on our tray was frayed and stained from being given to so many people. The metal coating on the tray was scuffed in places. The sandwiches were dry and tiny, I think they used a smoked salmon spread rather than actual smoked salmon in my sandwich. The cream cheese in the cucumber sandwich tasted like nothing. The zucchini muffin was delicious but TINY! My scone was ROCK HARD and cold, it basically crumbled into pieces like a cookie. I could not even split it in half. Also we only both got one tiny scone... for over $60 per person. The desserts were... fine, however we were given two mysterious chocolate items that were not listed on their afternoon tea menu and seemed suspiciously akin to grocery store quality. The smell of the place was like an old person's house whose next door neighbor burns incense... just a weird, kind of musty perfume-y smell. Overall this place feels like it has seen much better days and is still trying to ride off of that. Gives me "tired cafe in Metrotown that was cool in 2008 and has never updated anything but still charges premium" vibes. For $10 more you could have high tea at Notch8 in the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, so...

Update: I actually slept over my review and thought it was a bit harsh and wanted to come back to rewrite more constructively until I saw the snarky reply from the owner. Not sure if it is AI generated but at least do a review first of the correctness of the reply. I wish I was pretty enough to be an influencer to get free meals, but alas I am a taxpayer, so why would I return to a place that disappointed me to spend more money and time? So I am keeping the review as is and change it to 1 star: I was deceived by the extremely high rating only to realize that the lower rating reviews are most accurate. It is mediocrity charged at premium high tea price. The description of the items sounded very delicate and fancy but it really is the name. Visually is very pretty and the amount of different things feed your eyes but if you're a foodie you're bound to be disappointed especially at that price point. The quality reminds me of Starbucks, how you walk in and see the baked goods all nicely on display but behind the display case you see the barista pulling open plastic packages and placing the baked things on display. They compromised the taste and quality with cuteness and petiteness. The scones is tiny and cute but absolutely dry, even a grocery scone is better. The cream is watery. The coconut macaroons were burnt and dry. The cucumber sandwich had almost non existent spread, it felt like eating white bread with two thin slices of cucumber and a small slice of tomato. The croissant reminded me of those Costco mini croissants and they bought a jar of pesto and spread on it. The savory muffin with mascapone tasted nice because as I said they compromised quality with size so half of the savory muffin was baked stuck to the paper. The baked tarts were a bit burnt but not as bad as the macaroons. The top tier of sets reminds me and tasted like those assorted mini fruit tarts and cupcakes from store. The shell to custard ratio makes it like eating shell with not enough custard to balance with. Those little cups were so cute and beautiful but it was just very sweet. Nothing on any of the 3 tiers warrant a price tag of $65 dollars. Obviously I ate it all because of how much I had to pay for this. Also being a high tea place you should know your tea menu. We were referred to scan the QR code up go through the teas but we made it clear we like Darjeeling. The server should know there are actually 2 types of Darjeeling and able to give a high level description of the tea and not just go and pick one to serve. Sadly it was the fruity darjeeling which we would prefer not to start with. Server was very friendly though, ambiance was cute. If you want pretty Instagram photos, it is definitely the place to be. If you are a foodie, you will not be satisfied after especially paying $65...

Took my husband here this morning for high tea to celebrate Father’s Day. He enjoys high teas so we have been to many, and have always wanted to try this place because the reviews are decent. However it was a massive disappointment.

Right from making reservation they were unprofessional. Single liner email response like text style.

A week to my reservation I received 3 automated email reminders but none of the emails stated where it comes from (no restaurant name), just the date and the time. The reminder also stated that if we are running late to call them to let them know. We had a hard time trying to find parking and was going to be 5 mins late, called them twice and no one answered. I assumed it was because they were busy but when i arrived there were only 2 other tables, the place was fairly empty.

Stood at the door for 10 mins no one came, even after we rang the bell several times like it said too at the entrance, had to go to their cashier counter and ring the bell there before someone comes out from the back.

When the server brings the tea and food she was very casual, puts down tea pots casually on the wobbly tables and making a lot of noise. My daughter’s petite tea set came in a plastic tray, which was shocking for high tea.

I’ve never been to a high tea place that plays pop music in the background. when the music loop stops they didn’t notice so it was silent with no background music for half an hour. Very awkward for a places that’s not busy.

Server never checked in on how we are doing. Never offered to refill water for our tea pot.

Cupcakes and muffins and tart liners still there unremoved. Tart was underbaked and stuck on the liner so we couldn’t even eat that.

We gave up at some point and decided to just leave. Since no one ever checked on us we couldn’t even get the bill at the table. Went to the counter and no one was there, had to ring the bell again before someone comes out so we can pay. Did not check to see how our experience was.

We will definitely not return.

I gave the place 2 stars because the savoury items (with the exception of the egg salad croissant - it tasted fine but definitely not egg salad) were decent. Another good thing is for the petite tea we are allowed to choose which items we wanted. But definitely overpriced given the poor food quality, lack of attention to details, and...