Sally Lunn’s Tea Room & Restaurant in downtown Chester, New Jersey, United States, is a small tea room with a Victorian theme and very good scones. No matter the flavor, they have a nice texture and they serve some of the nicest clotted cream I have found in the US.
One important thing to note is that they are dedicated to the Victorian theme. Victorian-era people thought it was bad taste to have bare walls and tried to cover every surface with things. This restaurant tries to do that while still making it possible to run a restaurant that is not going to be shut down for fire hazard violations. Some people dislike the visual clutter, but it is influenced by another time.
Tea can be had at any time the shop is open. The Cream Tea (tea + scone + 3 shortbread tarts) was $14.50, the basic Afternoon Tea (tea + scone + ~5 finger sandwiches) is $21.50, and the Victorian Tea (tea + scone + ~5 finger sandwiches + ~4 sweet things) was $28.50. In 2024, New Jersey had a state sales tax of 6.625%, and the US is a tipping country (up to you regarding the amount to leave, but some restaurants will apply their own default percentage for parties above a certain size), so the total for a Victorian Tea is $30.39 after tax but before tip.
In my most recent visit, we ordered one Homemade Soup of the Day, one Cream Tea and one Victorian Tea.
The soup of the day was Tomato Bisque for $7.50. It was flavorful and came with warm, fresh bread. My companion’s only disappointment was that the soup was merely room temperature and not at all warm. In fact, the bread was warmer than the soup!
We chose the Cherry Rose green tea and the Sally Lunn black tea. They helpfully came in two different-colored teapots, which I personally think is important when there are different teas inside of the pots. The Cherry Rose was very strong. The Sally Lunn tea was a sturdy black tea. Sally Lunn does refill hot water.
The Cream Tea was two-tiered, with three strawberry-raspberry tarts on top and our chosen scone, the blueberry scone, on the bottom. It all tasted as expected, I am told, and I did take a bit of that nice blueberry scone!
The Victorian tea was three-tiered. The bottom tier was an Irish Chedder scone on the bottom served with clotted cream (went together poorly), strawberry jam (went together “okay”), and two pats of butter (went together better). The middle tier were watercress, 2 tomato slices, fingers sandwiches. The “selection of sinful mini-desserts” were a bit of chocolate cake with an old-fashioned feel because of using clotted cream with a blueberry on top; a vanilla(?) macaron; a very strong-in-flavor petit four carried mostly by sugar with apricot jam and some sort of syrup or honey; and a strawberry with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.
The strawberry was the biggest surprise. It looked like a chocolate-covered strawberry at first glance, but it was definitely chocolate frosting. The sprinkles made it funnier. I kept giggling inwardly at the strawberry with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. My non-child companion informed me that people did do some silly things in the Victorian era, so it could be traditional.
As usual, Sally Lunn had excellent scones. I was mildly surprised to cut into my Irish Cheddar scone and discover a few green streaks, but I quickly remembered that St Patrick’s Day is coming up. The blueberry scone from the cream tea had no such colour surprises. Both scones were a good texture, warm, and had the right spreads to go along.
Staff was well-trained and spoke gently. However, I think they should remove the flowers on the table once food is brought out. Had we ordered 3 tea sets, I believe the table would have been extremely and uncomfortably crowded.
I have visited about 5 times in the last 9 years. Every time I go, I feel a little underwhelmed and then forget why until after I go again. Their scones and tea are always good, and those are probably some of the most important parts for a traditional tea. Their other foods are never quite to my taste, namely the sandwiches and the non-scone bakery goods. I guess traditional Victorian fare is overall not quite my thing.
