Lady Camellia — Restaurant in Alexandria

We originally had reservations for 6:30pm on Feb 1 2023 through OpenTable (just missed the soft opening, which was 50% off! Darn), but they reached out to us the night before at a little past 9pm to let us know they weren't ready to serve evening tea yet, and asked us to come earlier. Had i not checked my emails at that time, I wouldn't have seen that message. I responded, but by 9am the next day there wasn't a response, so i followed up again. That part was a little inconveniencing; why make the timeslot available on OpenTable if you're not ready/open then? However, despite their hours being 1-4 for now, they let us come at 5, which was the earliest we could make it. My fiancé did have to cut a work meeting short to make sure we could go because he knew i really wanted to lol.

When we were dining, we noticed that the lights kept flickering on and off, which got annoying. The windows are nice and big, but not all seats are window side. Still, you can see the Potomac, although there are some interior seating areas that don't have windows. There's a parking lot that the cafe overlooks that is waterfront, and it's $10 flat rate. You do see the parking lot in front of the view of the water. We opted for a parkmobile spot just another half block down that ended up being around $2 for an hour.

I quite liked the macarons, and my lady grey tea had a nice subtle hint of lavender. Our pastries came with jam, clotted cream, and a lemon curd. We tried to order the passion fruit panacotta but they told us it was unavailable. We then tried to order chocolate pots de crème, but those were also out. Then tried to order a pain au chocolat croissant--also out. Ended up with crème brûlée.

One of our servers was wearing extremely long fake nails, and I personally get the ick from anyone in food/beverage service having them without gloves. The nails were cute! I just don't think they're sanitary for being around food handling; I would have preferred if she wore gloves, as a lot of dirt and grime can get stuck under such long nails, but maybe I'm just being a hypochondriac.

I think this could easily be 5 stars if they fixed the minor complaints I had--namely the lighting and not running out of so many things, and also figuring out their end on OpenTable to not say they're available when...

Outrageously expensive for what you get.

Went on Friday to the soft opening - beautiful room (high ceilings, decor etc), great view of water. Food & teas were delicious but...

--Small room means tables are closer together than ideal. Servers have a tight squeeze to pass by and if any loud talkers in the room you will hear every word. Luckily we had a good quiet crowd (room wasn't full for most of the time luckily) and enjoyed the tasteful piano jazz music from the ceiling speakers. -I would strongly advise against bringing kids under 16 as the very small space means any loud kid talking etc will greatly disturb all the adults who are paying $$ for a fancy adult experience. (I've been to the Tea Cart in Berryville VA which I highly recommend - much better value - and they offer themed teas for kids).

--All menu choices include only one tea selection which seems chintzy and ridiculous when the menu has such a long list of teas to choose from. The Tea Cart mentioned above gives unlimited teas.

--Don't choose the "croissant" as it's comically small. It's nothing like a regular croissant and is just 3 small bites. I got the apple one which was amazingly good but should have been much larger. The scones are also delicious (perfect texture) and are full-sized.

--The ordering format was not ideal - when getting the full tea you have to awkwardly make lots of menu selections when ordering which kind of takes away from the classy experience. Most teas just bring you out a set selection of items (or you maybe make one or two choices plus the tea). It seems stingy of the place to make you make so many decisions for such small items for such high cost. Why can't they just include and bring out more items so you don't have to make so many choices.

--Terrible value. The location, decor, beautiful dishes & tableware and view are of course worth something, but when our tray was brought out for the $50 full tea for one + $27 "make it for two" add-on it looked like a ridiculously small amount of food for $77. Yes I know teas have small bites of things but I've been to many and this was not much for the cost. They should be giving more items and throw in a few macaroons as well, not make you choose between 10 macaroon flavors or several other...

I’m one of those people who love going to all the afternoon tea places, and I had high hopes based on the reviews and pictures. When we first arrived, we were wow’d by the venue. This is one of the prettiest tea rooms I’ve been in. All the pots, cups, and plates were pretty. Unlike other places though, every table had the same design and set-up. They don’t seem to sell pots or cups either.

We seated ourselves at this corner table, but found that this was a mistake because when they seated the table next to us (which happened to be a larger group), they added a table and boxed us in so we couldn’t get in and out easily. It also made our table easy to neglect by the servers. The two tables around us had servers do rounds to check in on them, and ours only when we could flag them down. It’s strange because there were so many workers, but there was no structure or set waitress for each table. This meant it took us like 20 minutes just to get our order in since we had to wait to flag down a server who wasn’t busy. They seemed apologetic and tried to make more of an effort when they realized we felt neglected, so I don’t think it was intentional.

The food was decent in taste, but it wasn’t mind-blowing like some other places I’ve been to. The portion size of the sandwiches were bigger though, but the scones and croissant were smaller. Overall it is a lot of food for the average person. I ordered the Cream Earl Grey which was AMAZING and highly recommend to Earl Grey lovers. The only suggestion I would make is to have honey and milk available, or at least let us know we have the option if it is already available.

Maybe my experience would have been better if I came during a weekday, but overall for the amount I paid (with the alcoholic drink and the 18% gratuity it was about $90+) and the service we got, it was so-so. I wouldn’t say I’m never coming back, but it’s unlikely based on the other afternoon tea locations I could go to with better service and quality.

Also, warning for people not from the area: Old Town Alexandria has horrible parking on the weekend. Either make sure you come early enough to snag a parking garage spot (prices can vary based on distance and how busy it is $5-20) or street parking which is pay...