High Tea anyone?

Our high tea committee has been on a few escapades around town, trying to feel the vibes and sample the food that regular high teas have, and Jess Tat in Yr 12 has written an article about it with photos.

High-Tea at the NGV

While this winter has been cold and the winds haven’t spared us the day, feeling excited about having our first high-tea together has made the cooler temperatures more tolerable! Having made plans for the whole high-tea committee (and our lovely French Exchange student) to visit the National Gallery of Victoria (one of Melbourne’s most beautiful buildings and art spaces), we figured it would be useful to have a trial high-tea together to help us plan for our very own high-tea event at school.

We walked through the front foyer, warmly greeted by one of the foyer men, up the escalator to the first floor and into a gorgeous and sumptuous tea room, overlooking the mesmerising Waterwall (which we had the personal pleasure of touching) or Federation court. Marvelling at the impeccable glass ware and white crockery, we seated ourselves comfortably and in high spirits for the food we had high hopes for.

It didn’t let us down. The presentation of the sweets plate was just perfect and visually-stunning. The entire plate was an artistic masterpiece, and we were hesitant to dig in. We spent more time being in awe and taking photographs of these sweet treats than consuming them. All of the sweets were fantastic and each one was incredibly crafted and constructed. Each little treat melted in your mouth and were either very subtle (the chocolate and raspberry mousse), or had very strong and colourful flavours (the limoncello meringue tart). While the sweets stole the show, it was hard not to ignore the savouries – the little sliced salmon with crème fraîche, and cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches.

Being a high-tea, the selection of teas was just amazing. The NGV had such a large variety of tea flavours that it was really difficult deciding which one we should have but we settled on Earl Grey, lemongrass and ginger, mint mix and another one whose name escapes me. They were all very rich and beautiful teas, a god-send because it was really cold outside.

The committee ordered the Italian Masterpieces High Tea set which consisted of:

· savouries including pizza, beef pie or vegetable pie, ciabatta with mozzarella and prosciutto
· scones with double cream and preserve
· a dessert dome including sweet tomatoes and mozzarella in a pot, sweet pasta dough, chocolate and raspberry mousse, nutella pizza with pistachio nut with the edible flower, limoncello meringue tart
· a choice of two teas or coffees

Or the Devonshire Tea set which consisted of the Chef’s selection of sweet treats with house blend tea or coffee.
Food that didn’t disappoint at all, and in fact, exceeded some expectations.

Not only did we have a lot of fun enjoying our high-tea treats at the NGV, it was really nice to just sit down with good company and good food in an incredible atmosphere. Our biggest appreciation to Jess and Shona for their organisation and planning of the event!