Afternoon Tea at Fairmont Olympic Hotel — Restaurant in Seattle

My husband and I treated ourselves to afternoon tea at the Fairmont as an early Christmas present. We had afternoon tea on a trip to London last year and loved it, so we were hoping to recapture some of that experience at the Fairmont. Our hopes were dashed the second we walked into the hotel. I understand that the afternoon tea service used to take place in a more traditional dining space, but now takes place in the lobby. I assumed that a hotel as reputable and established as the Fairmont would have only made this change if their lobby were an adequate replacement for a dining space—wrong again. When we stepped inside, we were immediately confronted with hoards of people. There is also a bar in the lobby, and it was packed, and other hotel guests and patrons were wandering around, making it difficult to figure out where to go. I eventually stopped a busser to ask where we were supposed to go for our tea reservation. She flagged down another employee who checked our reservation and escorted us to our “table.” Our reserved space was a small, round, knee-height table with one seat on a crowded bench (another guest had to be asked to move so we could sit down) and the other seat in the midst of the crowd, which resulted in several bumped elbows throughout the course of our dining experience. Our server, Caleb, was wonderful. He did his best to talk over the din of bar guests and clattering dishes to guide us through the menu. It took a while for our tea to come out, and quite a bit longer for the food to arrive, to the extent that we had both nearly finished our quickly cooling tea. The tea was fine, but nothing to write home about. When the food arrived, I noticed there were two of everything on the tray. When I made the reservation, I selected a table for two but only one afternoon tea menu. The fact that I was able to make the reservation this way led me to believe it would be fine for two of us to split one serving of food. We did it this way because our reservation was at 2:30 in the afternoon, and we didn’t want too much food. Before eating anything, I explained to our server that we were only expecting one serving of food. He explained that they “don’t really do that,” but told us to enjoy the food and he would take care of it. The food was… disappointing. The scones tasted like KFC biscuits, the bread on the finger sandwiches was stale, and the desserts were nothing special. Though we only ended up paying a little more than $100 (thanks, Caleb!), it is shocking to me that the Fairmont thinks what they served us that day was worth $200+, especially given the horrendously loud and chaotic environment in which it was served. It was probably foolish of me to assume that an afternoon tea service in the United States would be as high quality as the one we enjoyed in London (home of afternoon tea), but I thought an establishment as reputable as the Fairmont would take more pride in the quality of their product. To the hotel’s credit, all of the staff with whom we interacted were kind and helpful, but that is the extent of the praise I can extend. I won’t be returning, and I urge everyone reading this to find somewhere else to go for afternoon tea, unless you want to spend multiple hundreds of dollars for bad food and mediocre tea in an unpleasant...

I’m including photos from the last time 2 times my close girlfriends and I had afternoon tea inside the Georgian in 2019. The first was spring tea in April and the final time during the Christmas season. Christmas tea had been our tradition for over a decade.

Like many others who’ve lived or frequently visited Seattle, the Fairmont was known for the place to celebrate with afternoon tea.

Just before Covid the dining room was closed for remodeling. Where the Christmas trees and warm original woodwork led to the dining room has been remodeled into a bright vintage-style bar and eating area called the Olympic Bar. The space was breathtaking the first time I saw it in early 2022. The decor is truly fantastic and is a nod to the 1920s when the hotel opened. The drinks and snacks I’ve had each visit since have been fantastic.

However, having the afternoon tea here was awkward and disappointing. The tables in Olympic Bar are TINY and afternoon tea already takes up so much space. The quality of the offerings at tea have unfortunately gone downhill. Tea now feels like an afterthought instead of THE destination. Due to the space and table sizes, The Olympic Bar has limited space for tea. We weren’t able to bring in our group of 9-10 people as we’d have to sit separately.

My hope is the leadership at the Fairmont Olympic reads all of the reviews posted here and takes them as a sign to reimagine the tea experience. It truly makes me sad that there aren’t any high quality afternoon tea destinations in Seattle now. The options that are available are mediocre to tasteless while also being close in price to...

I was fairly concerned about what my experience would be based on so many negative reviews on various platforms. I was mostly pleased with this afternoon tea. There was plenty of food and tea for two of us. In fact, we took our desserts to go. The finger sandwiches were delicious though the wheat bread on the egg salad sandwiches was hard, all the other breads were great. The scones were good but not as good as I had hoped, and the amount of lemon curd, jam and cream was not quite enough for the two of us. (Didn’t know if we could have asked for more?) The desserts were quite good. The tea was excellent, though I’m certainly not a tea connoisseur. My friend had the creamy Earl Grey and I had the hotel’s Centennial offering. The service from our server, Caleb, was perfect! He was extremely pleasant and knowledgeable, and even offered to take pictures of us. Our main issue with the experience, besides the high cost, was the environment. Our table for two was very small and barely fit the tea and dishes. It was also right on the walkway so there was the distraction of people constantly walking past. The sound level was very high and we found ourselves having to move in closer to hear each other, frequently having to repeat ourselves. About an hour in, a group of six was seated right next to us. They were loud, but that was to be expected from a group of that size and given the overall sound level they also had to deal with. Their closeness to us, however, meant we were constantly getting bumped into by the servers. It was overall a good experience but not one I’ll...