Lavender 'n Lace Tearoom — Restaurant in Lake Alfred

I found this place by accident driving by and I saw their sign. I was curious and I turned around to investigate. I was blown away from what I saw. A Lavender House turned into a restaurant. The outdoors was a place to take lovely pictures it felt like a secret garden. I recommend you show up at least 30 mins early before your reservation because you will want to take pictures before going inside to enjoy the food.

I couldn't wait to bring a friend to enjoy the experience I understand why you have to make reservations the place was packed. I also noticed everyone inside dressed up. You won't see anyone in shorts and flip flops. Even the men were dressed up in a nice polo shirt and khaki pants. I think it is the atmosphere of the Tea House that makes you want to wear your Sunday best clothes. You will see groups of people celebrating an anniversary, birthday, or any celebration. It is also so cute to see mom's bring their daughters and they dress a like in these cute dresses with a cute fascinator hat.

Since my first experience I treated my friend for her birthday. She loved it. Ever since then I always bring a new friend as a surprise about this place and they are always blown away. It is a true Tea House experience with the atmosphere. Not a High Tea experience that you get the 3 tier of finger sandwiches and little scones. It is a brunch restaurant and I have tried everything on the menu each time I visit and the food is delicious. Oh do try their homemade soups it is very impressive. They have a separate Tea menu with variety of loose tea severed in a vintage tea pot that you can share or you can have your own tea pot. Their desert menu is delish a lot of selections to pick from. Your choices are a slice of pie, cake, or you can have scones. All your plate settings are mix match giving it that shabby chic feel. Trust me once you get your tea pot and food you will be so tempted to arrange it on your table and start taking pictures.

The staff are very friendly and you can see that they enjoy working there. If you are lucky enough to meet the owner out doors he is very friendly and if you ask questions about the place he lights up and will gladly tell you the story on how it all began.

I live one hour away and I used to come twice a year now it is more frequently sharing my experience with a new co-worker and I always ask someone new at work, "Do you love drinking tea?" If they respond, "Yes, I love drinking tea." Then I mention just a little bit about the place enough to convince them to go with me because I don't want to spoil the "WOW" factor. I want them to feel the experience I first had when I went there. As soon as they say, "Yes" we agree on a date to make reservations then I say dress up cute.

I hope this Tea House stays there forever it is a wonderful whimsical experience and so far I haven't found a place like this near where I live.

The only con I have about this is the online reservations. It will say pending sometimes you get a confirmation and sometimes you don't. I recommend you call and make the reservations until that issue gets fixed. I will give you my situation I made an online reservations on August 3rd for August 14th for 2 people and it still...

Sept 4, 2024 - Our first visit to Lavender & Lace this week to celebrate our Mom’s 77th Birthday. This was a wonderful upscale and comfortable experience. The restaurant is in an old house surrounded by big trees and gardens. My sister uses a Walker and this was easy to access for her. We tried two (cups) soups ($6), Wild Rice & Mushroom and also Cream of Asparagus. Both were tasty and worth ordering again. For lunch we ordered Curry Chicken (pan-seared tenderloins marinated in yogurt sauce & zesty Persian lime cooked in showcase blend curry and served over seasoned basmati rice - $22), Cottage Pie (ground sirloin with garden vegetables, herbs, and spices topped with creamy mashed potato’s - $19), Crunchy Chicken (homemade baked chicken casserole with rice, celery& sliced almonds topped with cheddar, mozzarella, and crunchy crushed potato chips - $19) and Puff Pastry (tender pieces of chicken sautéed with broccoli in a butter cream sauce, served along w/ a delicate puffed pastry-$19). Everything was flavorful, large portions and we would order each item again. The Cottage Pie had the lightest flavor of each of the entrees we ordered. The Crunchy Chicken and curry Chicken were our favorites. The staff was very nice and friendly and our server was delightful. We also had a couple of different teas. We tried a berry iced tea which was really nice and a hot Snow Monkey Tea which was a light flavored tea. We highly recommend a visit to this charming and beautiful restaurant tucked away in a neighborhood in Lake Alfred, Florida.

November 6, 2024 - Saturday was our third experience at Lavender & Lace in 3 months as we celebrated a friend’s birthday. This time we ordered a cup of Sausage Gumbo Soup ($6), Curry Chicken ($22), Chicken Salad Sandwich on Croissant ($18) and Quiche ($19). For dessert, we ordered the Peanut Butter Pie ($8), Cranberry & Orange Scones ($8.25) with clotted cream and Dark Chocolate Mouse Cake ($9). The Sausage Gumbo Soup was flavorful and just right. The Okra cooked within it was a nice and not slimy texture. The Curry Chicken, we’ve had before and loved it so much we enjoyed it again. The Chicken Salad on Croissant was AMAZING! In fact I feel like this is the best most creamy chicken salad I’ve ever had. And the croissant was toasted just right. I will definitely get this sandwich again. Our friend had the Quiche and while she said the crust was a bit hard to cut, she really enjoyed the taste and consistency of the Quiche. The Cranberry & Orange Scone was served with two scones and I don’t know that I’ve ever had clotted cream so I wasn’t sure what to expect. These Scones were really tasty and I’m happy that this was my choice. My husband got the peanut butter pie and it surprised us as it had a much lighter taste than we expected. Also very tasty and something we recommend. Our friend enjoyed the Dark Chocolate Mouse Cake and she was very pleased. The teas we enjoyed were a hot Raspberry in Paris Rooibos and an iced Pina Colada. Both were excellent. This is a beautiful restaurant and garden and they have a nice gift shop to browse before or...

Terrible customer service today. I have been here at least 10 times and always had a great time. However, today, after an 11 am reservation for 2 people, we were told by our waitress that the manager said we needed to leave (at 12:57 pm) due to them needing the table immediately. Mind you we were sitting at only a table of 2 in front of the fireplace, in which flowers were literally in my hair with no space. When my friend apologized to the hostess for taking the table for too long (maybe with a slight tone), the hostess said there was a “miscommunication” and that she could reseat us if we wanted (after taking away the remainder of our tea and clearing the table). Then she said that they “value” hospitality and multiple servers had to serve us and asked if we needed a box an hour and 45 minutes into the tea x 4 servers. She also said servers were having to fill our water and clear our dishes, fyi in the time that we were there, our waters were not refilled even one time. I totally understand that they were busy, but there was a much more professional way to ask a table to leave, such as to say each table is a 2 hour reservation. There were multiple empty tables surrounding us and the two tables next to us were guests that had the same arrival time, with 5 people each…we went to the Back Porch instead after and were treated much better. They also have alcohol which was much appreciated after this terrible service today. This establishment lost 2 loyal customers today. Edited to add based on management response: There is no way we could “overhear” a comment literally made to us directly. You do not have good customer service as described in the review above as your staff 4 times asked about boxes, yet didn’t refill empty waters , etc. You also do not value honesty as you made up the fact that we overheard something, not a true representation of what happened at all, and then you accuse your actual customers of being dishonest. Hope you continue to do well, but the more customers you treat poorly, and the more stories you make up the more word of mouth gets around. Have...