House Of Clarendon

If you’d like pretense go here. I had the worst phone conversation ever with the «gentleman» who works here. I called to inquire about a cake and was told that an 8″ and 6″ 2-​tier would be $ 250… perhaps if it was made of unicorn tears and pure gold would I consider such robbery. My gripe is not the price or the pretense though… my issue was that when I told the man what I was looking for and what my budget was he was rude, pretentious and downright nasty. Please don’t consider this place if you’d like to be treated like a human being in need of a service from a vendor. This is a wedding factory for the highest paying bidder, where you will be treated decently only if you have an extra large/​super-​sized walled to throw around. He would not be receiving this review if he would have treated me with some customer service. Apparently House of Clarendon does not need customers and if it does it will certainly not be me.

This is one of those places where it is so posh and fragile, that you’re afraid to walk around or touch anything, or even breath. Treats were dry. Iced coffee is good. Owner is incredibly nice.

My fiancé and I went here last fall for a cake tasting for our upcoming wedding (this coming fall). As other reviews have said, the showroom is really beautiful, and you can tell that the owner and staff really care about their business.
What we were disappointed with, was that when we booked our appointment, we told them the specific flavor (pumpkin) that we wanted for our cake — the response was that we would get «what they had available» to taste that day, and that they were unwilling to work with us, even though that was the only flavor we were really interested in tasting. Our tasting was in November, so it’s also not as though it would’ve been out of season for them to make something with that flavor (During the confirmation phone call a few days before, I once again told them that we really wanted to try the pumpkin, as that’s the flavor we want for the cake, and was again told we didn’t have a choice in what we tried).
At the appointment (No pumpkin), we tried probably 6 or 9 different flavors, and while they were all good, nothing really blew us away. We enjoyed chatting with Martine — he’s quite funny and extremely personable, but did also feel that he really tried to push us into ordering. It felt like we just kept hearing how much better his cakes were than anyone else’s (and again, they were good, but not amazing), and how much cheaper they were when we broke down the numbers. I did appreciate how he offered us different options — we’re having over 200 guests and don’t want to break the bank on the cake, so seeing what we could do with the ‘show’ cake and then (hidden) sheet cakes was very helpful, but even then, the pricing was still more than a couple other bakers we’re looking at. Overall, it felt like the ‘advertising’ of their cakes was over the top and really pushy — akin to being at a car dealership, but for wedding cake.
In the end, we decided not to go with house of clarendon mainly because we weren’t able to try the flavor we wanted, and requested — the whole thing kind of made us feel like we they would love for us to spend our money (and lots of it), but we weren’t worth the effort for them to make us the flavor we wanted to try.

My company threw me a mini bridal shower at work the other week and brought in cupcakes from House of Clarendon. We had lemon, pink champagne, and vanilla. They were adorable, impeccably decorated, and so so delicious. They didn’t last long and I hid the last one to eat later. I would definitely buy from House of Clarendon! :)

The wedding business is a tough one. And I don’t mean on the business, I mean tough on the on the people who pay for weddings. The prices that wedding service providers charge for things would make Tony Soprano blush.
A little backstory, for years House of Clarendon was owned by an ill-​termpered British woman whose disdain for, well, everyone who crossed the threshold was pretty well known. Around 2008 a new owner, a younger male entrepreneur with a much more pleasant disposition took over the business and the name and has moved it to a new location, next to Shumaker PDT on Harrisburg Pike (across from the new YMCA).
So my wife was planning a small surprise birthday gathering for our daughter’s 27^th birthday. We were gathering a local pub (another story) and wanted to bring something small for each of the six guests. So she ordered a dozen cupcakes figuring that she would bring six to the pub and leave the rest at home for post pub consumption.
I had not been to the new location so when my wife went to pick them up, I tagged along to see what it loomed like. This new, much larger showroom was nice, if not, well, a little showroomy, if you get what I mean. Half the area is, apparently, given over to wedding displays and run by a person who sells their wedding services. When we entered my wife was immediately drawn to the displays where the woman there asked what she come in for. When my wife said to pick up the cupcakes she had ordered earlier in the week she was brusquely told that took place «over there», turned her back and stalked off.
So we went to the counter and told the nice girl there what we had come for. She said it would take just a moment to box them up.
While we waited we looked at the bakery displays and were somewhat excited. Lots of turquoise boxes (sidenote: Tiffany called and wants their boxes back) with elegant «House of Clarendon» stickers adorning them. Once again, we anticipated something great.
What we got was a large, white, generic bakery box adorned with our name in felt pen and some scotch tape and a $ 51 dollar bill. Ok, no biggie. I mean, they’re designer cupcakes, right? What’s inside the box is what is important, we’ll be stunned by the contents.
When got the box of cupcakes home we, of course, had to sneek a little look inside, after all, the exterior was nothing to yell about. Inside were twelve of the smallest cupcakes I’ve seen. The were short too. They were, as one would expect, elegantly decorated and for our purposes we were more than happy to give up a little size for some wow.
Truth was, they were small. The cake was dry. They were rather oddly short, like they came out of the shallowest cupcake pan ever. I can’t figure out why HoC would bother making small cupcakes when larger ones wouldn’t have raised their costs to any significant degree (I mean, it’s cake batter, right).
In the end, I can’t help feeling we just got on the bridal bandwagon and got what most brides get on their wedding day (the result is exercise I leave to you, the reader). For $ 51, you would think, HoC would have given us the works in presentation and packaging, something we could have have really been proud of. Instead, we got some small but beautiful cupcakes that didn’t taste all that great in a generic box. I don’t think that’s something I have to go back there again to get. I can find that, or much better, in lots of other places. My recommendation, bypass the hype and go to one of many great bakeries in the area and get wonderful, fresh baked goods. Avoid House of Clarendon.

The original owners are gone, when that happens things tend to go down hill.

We had our wedding cake made by House of Clarendon, and we have nothing but WONDERFUL things to say about Martine and his crew. They were nothing but helpful and courteous. We didn’t have a huge budget, but they treated us as if we did.
The cake was delicious and everyone is still raving about it, even a year later!!!

We heard about this place totally by accident. We were taking a tour of the Fulton Opera House (a must do when in the area) and it happened to come up that I was a pastry chef. The tour guide insisted that we head over to this place to check it out. I was very impressed. How often do you find a tratidional English tea room in Lancaster County? We unfortunately didn’t come at a time when tea service was available, but the tea room was lovely none the less. Since we were already there we did sample a few of the desserts available in the smaller bakery area and they were fantastic. It is also fun to browse around a check out the decorated cakes, most done in very traditional English style (very formal, lots of royal icing, gumpaste flowers). It is such a random and unique treasure that I recommend anyone check out. Within short walking distance of the main shopping/​sightseeing area of downtown.

Another tea room!
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FOOD: This is a special place, not your typical restaurant. The bakery makes mostly wedding cakes, but they do have a small selection of other stuff. They also have a pastry school on the premises.
Now heres what makes it special. For about 40 $ you and your friends can have a tea tasting party. They bring out all sorts of teas, food in between each tasting and the whole time its an educational experience about each thing youre trying. Sounds awesome!
DECOR: Its kind of feminine feeling. But then old fashioned tea shops kind of are.
SERVICE: The girl behind the counter was very friendly and told me all about the things that go on there. The website has even more detail about the services.
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WOULD I GO BACK? Not unless I have a group to go with. This isnt a place that you can pop into and grab a quick bite. I probably could buy some tea, but for a quick pound Id probably go to Pemberley on Mulberry st.