Morning Lavender Boutique & Cafe — Restaurant in Tustin

Overall: 4.5/5 (dine in)

Morning Lavender is such a beautiful store/cafe hybrid. They have really cute clothes, specifically dresses, located at the front. Then as you walk towards the back, the place transitions into an aesthetic cafe. There are 2 floral backdrops where you can take pictures for the gram. They also have outdoor seating. Parking is a bit hard to find as everything is street parking.

We got the "Take Flight" ($19) which had samples of lavender latte, rose latte, rose back milk tea, & lavender milk tea. You can't adjust the milk type, and it does take awhile for the flight to come out. The lavender milk tea was my favorite. Their homemade lavender syrup is really one of the best. I love the cream they use on top of all the drinks as well. The two lattes had a really strong coffee taste. I liked the lavender latte over the rose latte which barely had any rose taste. The rose black tea was strong and was my least favorite.

Large Matcha Rose Latte With Macadamia Nut Milk ($6.25): I thought the drink was good at the beginning but the flavors are quite light so it does taste watered down if you don't finish your drink quickly. Once you mix the drink, you also lose the matcha and rose flavors so you mostly taste the macadamia nut milk. Given how light the flavors are, I think doing the matcha flight and getting a full sized drink for the lavender latte would have been the better...

I need to update review for boutique: I bought a pair of denim pants. I was so excited. However when I washed the pants the color of material disappear and some faint stain appeared. I took it to cleaner to consult they told me it’s a defect on material and didn’t show until I washed it. The store cashier told me if I washed it they won’t take it back so. I’m stuck.

This review is kind of done in curve. Space: it was clean but our tea party was at the patio and our seat was under the crack of two patio cover and sun hit our face. We all noticed that utensils didn’t look clean so we asked server to change. She said it’s just worn out and promised they were clean but they brought different set. My son has restaurant and I know those silver should be cleaner. If they cannot maintain to look clean change them to something else they can maintain clean. It’s not good image.

Service: staffs were friendly but they only had to bring tea and tiered plates of sand witch and sweets and didn’t have much interaction.

They do have automatic gratuity but also ask for additional tip. Additional tip suggestion show up after you give them credit card and automatic tip doesn’t show so it’s kind of dishonest (our group’s opinion). Overall, it was not our favorite compare to others places we’ve been to. Los Rios was much better atmosphere, food value...

Logistic and location: If you want 5 o'clock tea, you will have to make reservations at least 3 weeks ahead for a time not even close to 5 o'clock. I assumed that with such a long wait, it would ensure an indoor table. But oh! was I wrong! We were seated outside in a hot summer day, not even a fan to cool things down. If you are visiting from the cooler coastal OC cities, Tustin is 10 degrees warmer, so account for that temperature. Today that meant a not so lovely 97F (36C). Outside, you will also enjoy the beautiful view to the next door business parking lot. The same parking lot that you will try to park on, but will soon realize it says "Synergy customers only" and will force you to go find a spot on the street, as Morning Lavender doesn't have it's own parking lot. With a fix price and menu for a meal that still take you 30 min to eat, you might hope for perfection. But here, my first impression was a chipped tea cup (and it wasn't a reproduction of Chip from Beauty and The Beast). I must say, last time I had 5 o'clock tea, I was at The Orangery at Kensington Palace in London (similarly priced), so perhaps my expectations were a bit on the high end. There is nothing fancy or high end about...