The Greentree Tearoom

While I have not (yet) been to Greentree, they catered an event I recently attended. The menu was simple, but everything was perfectly prepared, with the table setting wonderfully appointed.
The server was very pleasant and professional. Small tender and perfectly cooked slices of prime rib, a saffron rice with roasted vegetables and potatoes, and a refreshing tomato aspic with shrimp, very retro. The Kentucky cheese biscuits were delicious and spicy. Delicate lacy cookies for dessert. Can’t wait to visit the Tearoom for lunch!

My wife and I have been frequenting the Greentree Tea Room for years and truly love it!
They have a rotating monthly menu which is served in courses except for the final course (sandwiches and dessert) which is served buffet style. Seeing that this is a formal tea your beverage is a hot tea served with sugar (or artificial sweetener) and cream or lemon, as well as ice water.
One of my many favorites is the August menu which features a chilled cantaloupe soup as well as a baked pear with blue cheese entrée salad.
The cantaloupe soup might sound strange but it is absolutely one of my favorite dishes. Offered at the peak of cantaloupe season this chilled, cream-​based delight is the «piece de resistance».
Course number two is the oatmeal scone served with orange marmalade and Fayette cream. This British standard has great flavor and texture, with the marmalade and Fayette cream adding just the right amount of complexity.
The tea sandwiches at the end are also a delight and you most certainly will not go home hungry!
Service at this establishment is impeccable and they know us by name!

Cute location, great concept, DREAMY blueberry scones. I came to the Green Tea Room for a birthday party, which was served the pre-​set, 4-​course tea/​food menu. Note: the menu changes monthly, and can be viewed on the company website. Reservations are strongly recommended (but really, does anyone just impulsively decide to lunch at a tea room solo anyway?).
The little restaurant and adjacent antique room were adorable, and the private parking, especially for downtown Lexington, was great (I will never get over the generosity that is free parking). Seating is limited and almost elbow-​to-​elbow, but that was fine.
The food: we started with a soup course, a buttery, creamy Spring Vegetable Soup. It was delicious, but a little bit of a downer to recognize that the «spring vegetables» were frozen mixed veggies (I recognize them because I cheat when I make my own veggie soup and just dump in a bag of frozen veggies — those unmistakeable little weird green bean pieces). The 2^nd course was the BEST, huge, flaky, buttery, gorgeous, piping hot blueberry scone, served with lemon curd and «Lafayette» cream. Honestly, the scone was sumptuous enough it didn’t need anything extra. It was my favorite item on the menu. The 3^rd course was a Ky Hot Brown on a split biscuit. It tasted pretty good but the biscuit wasn’t the best bread option IMO, having just had a biscuity scone (and the softness that is a Ky Hot Brown’s toppings/​sauce begs for a chewier, sturdier yeast bread base).
The last course was my least favorite and kind of a bummer. It was buffet-​style, but it wasn’t specified on the menu print-​out, and after sitting around waiting and whispering to each other what we should do, a server finally explained to us that we were supposed to go into another room and get the finger sandwiches and desserts. The tea hours were almost over, so we entered an empty room with an almost bare setup with tiered platters with some picked-​over mini lemon cupcakes, truffles, strawberry panna cotte and finger sandwiches. I liked the chicken salad and cucumber sandwiches very much, and pimiento cheese-​stuffed celery (NO southern event is complete without pimiento cheese!). The truffles were bad: gritty, bland and unattractive (they looked like large rabbit droppings, sorry but they did).
The service was friendly, if a bit scattered and unpolished. There were about 4 different servers coming around, and there was confusion with telling us about the last course (buffet-​style, rather than served to is), spilled glass of water, some of us had our tea and water refilled nonstop while others ran out.
The biggest downfall for this tea, however, was the tea! We were only served one tea, a hot herbal tea, very unimaginative and boring. I love hot tea, so I would have loved to have had several flavor options, or a different tea served per course to complement whatever we were eating. A fruit tea, spice tea, etc.
I didn’t pay anything since it was a party, but I think it was about $ 20 a person, definitely reasonable for the amount of food we were served.

I recently visited the tea room with some coworkers and it was a unique and lovely experience — I’ve never been to a place quite like it. The food was light but filling, the servers were attentive and professional, and the environment was very traditional and classy.
The tea itself was just right, and the pewter (I assume it was pewter) pitchers the servers used were just beautiful. All of the decorations were beautiful, actually — a whimsical assortment of timeless trinkets.
If you want to grab lunch someplace that sets itself apart from the generic roadhouses and pizza/​burger joints, the tea room is for you. Check it out; I know I’ll be going back.

The Greentree Tearoom is incredible! I have been wanting to have a traditional tea lunch for years now and made a reservation as soon as I learned this place existed. How have I passed it a million time and not even realized it was there. You can check out my blog post here to read more about my experience.

All I really need to say, is GO! It’s awesome!

Going to Greentree is a monthly event in our house. I will gladly skimp in other areas to make sure we have the funds to make our monthly visit for tea.
The menu changes monthly, but it’s always excellent, and the scones are hot and fresh made, along with the «crack-​in-​a-​bowl» Fayette Cream that’s served with them. It’s a delicious whipped cream indulgence that will have you and your tablemates fighting for the last in the bowl. There are always an assortment of cakes, tea sandwiches and cookies on offer during the buffet course, which comes after the soup, scone and main course offerings. I defy you to leave hungry after a leisurely tea at Greentree!
Service at Greentree is top-​notch. The staff treats you like honored guests, whether you’re a frequent visitor or a newbie. If you’d like to take a guest to a place where they will feel both comfortable and pampered, you can’t go wrong with Greentree.
Greentree requires reservations for their tea seatings and some months fill up well in advance, especially at Mother’s Day and Christmas, so keep that in mind. Usually tea is served at noon only, but during Christmas there are some 3 pm seating slots available.