The Waiting Room @ Melbourne, VIC

The Waiting Room is located at the classy side of the crown complex. It is one of Melbourne’s most luxurious lobby bars. It has a large selection of alcohol  from classic cocktails to the best scotch . It also offers a small selection of food. Most importantly, The Waiting Room is Winny’s current favourite afternoon tea place. Winny came to this place not so long ago with her friends and she loved it. She loved it so much that she cancelled the place I booked for high tea with her because she wasn’t happy with the food there and she took me to this place to share her experience.

The Waiting room is on the side of a huge lobby area. The lobby is class with a majestic surrounding. It was close to Christmas so this place has quite the holiday cheer with a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the lobby. We book this place on a Monday afternoon. We tried to do an afternoon booking last-minute on the Sunday the day before, but they were all booked out. When we arrived, the place was still empty and we get to enjoy the area all to ourselves.

The place is quite small with two rows of areas for seating. There is a row of seating on the outside where people can enjoy the outer lobby area however that area is a little noisy. We chose to sit in the inner area of the bar where we have a little more privacy. The people serving us were dressed quite smart in their suit and their service was top standard. The person serving us was polite and spoke to us in professional manner. Apparently he was quite cute as well and Winny was unfaithfully checking him out.

Our afternoon tea is served with a large selection of teas and there was no limit on how many we can try. The tea was heated up and prepared every time and they tasted and smelt like top standard quality. Not long the most anticipate tower of afternoon tea appears with the waiter. There were two of each kind so there is no need to share the food. The hot savouries were placed at the top layer.

The top later had Crab and leek volauvent and Ricotta cheese stuffed zucchini flowers. These tasted delicious. The Crab and leek vol-au-vent is a little circular pastry with crab and leak stuffing in the middle. The pastry was crisp and warm and the stuffing was full of delicious flavour. The zucchini flower was something I haven’t tasted before but it felt like something that belonged in my mouth. It was tasty and the ricotta cheese melting with the zucchini flower was a heavenly match.

The second layer of the afternoon tea contains the sandwiches. The sandwiches are full of different colours and they taste very different but have one thing in common. They all tasted awesome. The sandwiches are egg and chives salad on spinach scented bread, smoked salmon and herb crêpe roulade, cucumber and cream cheese on tomato scented bread, chicken and walnut on malted bread. The breads were all specially made, soft and scented in different flavours. The fillings were all quality made, tasty but not unhealthy. They were all extremely delicious. What differentiate a good afternoon tea to others are these quality made savoury food.

On the bottom were the desserts and they were decorated very well and delicately made. The desserts were spiced dense chocolate cake and ganache, violet and cassis éclair, velvet green tea and red bean mousse, mango curd tart with Tahitian vanilla cream. These desserts were no overly sweet and once again finely made. We were quite full at this point but we still manage to enjoy them. I do enjoy sweet food but I believe that four quality made dessert was just enough. I was glad that we didn’t end up going to the high tea I booked which was purely just sweets and dessert buffet.

The afternoon tea didn’t finish there. The next lot was freshly baked scones plain and raisin serve with homemade jam & cream. These were delicious especially the melting butter scones coming straight from the oven (20 minutes of wait time from the time we requested). The smell and taste of these scones were superb. Unfortunately Winny and I are not big eaters and we only managed to have just one each.

To finish off this amazing afternoon tea they served raspberry sorbet and pecan praline. The sourness of the raspberry sorbet with the touch of nuttiness from the pecan was a delicious finish to this amazing meal. We really enjoyed this afternoon tea and I was really glad that Winny took me here. I would recommend this place to anyone who wants to try a good afternoon tea or high tea in Melbourne.

Ps.  They also serve very good absinthes. We tried two different types of absinthes on our previous visit to Melbourne and it was well-made!