The Huntingtons Rose Garden Tea Room in San Marino

The tea room by the Rose garden at Huntington is a beautifully restored historic building that opened up earlier this year serving afternoon tea. Reservations were packed a few months ago but it seems to have settled down some. The traditional tea is pretty steep (get it?) in price per person but includes the standard tiers of sandwiches, scones, and your own teapot. If you choose the Huntington tea you pay more for the same experience plus a little lobster salad bite (very tasty!), a bonbon with pop rocks, and a glass of champagne. The ambiance is lovely and the staff is attentive/helpful.Tea selection is high quality, with unique flavors from floral and fruity to spiced. Most of the sandwiches were quite good (flavorful and moist) as well as the scones (buttery and soft). The dessert tier was terrible. They all tasted the same, just straight sugar. Probably comes from the same vendor that sells desserts in other locations at the Huntington, which I’m not a fan of. Overall it was a nice experience, if overpriced.

I used to visit for high tea over many years, and the renovations were absolutely stunning. The tea service is better than ever! What a graceful and lovely way to spend an afternoon with friends. Yasmine was our delightful tea server and she helped us enjoy our experience even more with her knowledge of the property and the teas served. Its my favorite place in the Southern California area!

Finally got a reservation and went to the tearoom for the first time after its renovation! Great new interior design and outdoor sitting, wonderful environment. Servers were friendly, but there is definitely room for improvement on service speed and accuracy. Food, I have to say, was ok, not impressive. Savory sandwiches and scones were much better than the small desserts. Roses are still in bloom, so the views are unbeatable.

Great service and ambience, low quality foodPros: amazing service (Angelina was wonderful), unbeatable ambiance, and amazing teaCons: food is all middling. Wouldn’t do it again because it’s overpriced. You’ll see other reviewers saying the same.Our waitress Angelina was a delight! Always quick to meet any of our needs. We loved the Huntington blend tea, very close to an Earl Grey. It’s such a beautifully decorated space, and you can’t beat the view of the rose garden from your chair.Sadly, the food was just meh. Nothing was amazing, even on the Huntington tea selection. I’d say the best was the curried carrot sandwich, scones and accoutrements, and ginger cake that was barely one bite. I will say, the tea itself was the best part. Delicious!At the end of the day, it was a fun experience, just not at all worth the price based simply on the low food quality. I hope Huntington reads all these reviews and steps it up! I’d love to see them so well.

Walk-in is possible for small parties (2), but youll get a tiny table. You have to buy one set per person. We had planned to buy one $78 tea set to share, but our server said thats not allowed. So we bought two $65 sets, which was expensive. Was the food worth it? Almost. The $65 set comes with your own selected tea, sugar lumps, 2 giant warm scones with clotted cream, butter, or lemon curd. We chose the savory set instead of the sweet set, so ours came with little sandwich bites. Thin floppy sandwiches with rich fillings/toppings. Cucumber, chicken salad, kurobota pork, smoked salmon with caviar. Tiny but delicious. Various nutty, fruity or creamy desserts. The standout was a crispy pastry cup filled with deviled egg. The tea room setting was lovely. Our server was fine, but he acted kinda strange. He spoke too softly at times and made awkward conversation.

The Rose Garden Tea Room is a beautiful way to stop, relax and enjoy high tea service while exploring the grounds.The renovation is beautiful, and the space white bright and welcoming.Highlights of the tea service: the curried carrot sandwich, the tarragon chicken salad sandwich and the egg salad. Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our experience.My one note is there should be an adults room or a family room. When spending $75/person for high-end tea service the last thing you want is a table with crying babies and screaming kids. It dampened what would have been a fantastic experience.

Tea at the Huntington Library. So disappointing. Basic tea set, basic food served on basic plates. Note the doilies are missing from the carriers. Can all be yours for a hefty tag of $91 per guest. Plus $25 entrance and you have to hike to get to the location. And reservations booked several months out. Just 😖 awful.

Very delicious assortment of dishes. The tarragon chicken was the first and yet best dish of them all. The cucumber sandwich was the second best of savory dishes. The tart cream was so tasty on the scones. I could eat the whole basket of scones. It was so good by itself and in my jasmine blueberry tea. The waiter sniffed the teas since he had no idea which tea was which, and that grossed out my mother, hence the docked star. He also at first gave me the Aztec spice, which was good at first, but I didnt order that. The pumpkin triangle was the best dessert of all. Ate all the micro greens in sight. ❤️ the cute small flowers garnished like sprinkles on the trays. 75 for the proseco, lobster, and chocolate extra. 65 for the reg tea menu. Dont wait 3 minutes like the waiter suggests for your tea if you dont want it to get bitter or take the tea bag out of the kettle after 3 minutes. All gender restroom with fully separate and closed toilet stalls.

We had been wanting to go since before the pandemic and finally got reservations. It is very nice inside and the AC is amazing especially in the heat wave we have been having. The food was great! The service was outstanding! I recommend the Huntington Tea service which comes with 3 extra items which are house bubbles, lobster salad in a crisp and flakey pastry (they have a vegan option to replace the lobster if you dont like lobster), and a Huntington bonbon. You must have reservations to get into the Huntington Library and then reservations for the tea room. They do take walk ups but you have to be there early to get on the list.

The service and ambiance were 5 stars but a few items were not worth the price point. Plus the milk/cream wasn’t brought out with the tea, so we had a long pause. The gender neutral restrooms were lovely and clean, it’s how they are in Europe, floor to ceiling stalls with no gaps, similar to beach restrooms. very private except for the communal hand washing station. The Gen Mai Cha and Earl Grey were our favorites and the Strawberry, Saba, Whipped Black Pepper Cream Cheese sandwich. Scones were average and they gave a lot of yummy toppings and good portions but I did miss the traditional clotted cream. We all agreed the egg salad was bland… more dill? Mustard maybe ? And the best part of the upgrade was the glass of Prosecco, it’s $10 value so the 2 added bites were $3 if you look at it that way… but the lobster was disappointing, I wish they kept it a mini lobster roll just like they server for Valentine day 2023! For the price I don’t think that’s asking too much. Love that they offered to check in the stroller, I’m glad I brought my own plastic tea set for the toddler. Due to price it might be an every few years treat but would probably come back. Would be nice if some à la carte options if we didn’t want to do the full high tea. I only saw add on options.