Melanie S.
Yelp
I love a good afternoon tea and the one at Asterisk is this great combination traditional and comfortable.
The restaurant is very cute, with a vintage library theme. There are walls of books and the menu is affixed inside the cover of a used book. It's a fun conversation starter - one of my friends wanted to hold onto hers to flip through the pictures! All of the plates and china are mismatched, which is just charming. Everyone had a different cup, saucer, and tea pot.
Asterisk offers tea on the weekends, multiple ways, from a cream tea with scones and jam to a full afternoon tea including soup, salad, sandwiches, scones, and treats, along with a pot of black, herbal, oolong, or green tea in multiple flavors. It's fun to customize your menu! A full tea comes out staggered, rather than on the little tiered trays, so you can enjoy each course. We had a party of 10 and did not feel rushed at all.
Today, I wasn't feeling full tea, so had a pot of chai tea latte and split entrees with one of my friends. Turns out, we were both trying to decide between the same two things, and the restaurant kindly split both portions and brought out two very nicely plated half portions. We chose the veggie burger that came with fries (truffle I think) along with the specialty pasta, which today was duck and collard green ragout. We also had scones.
The chai latte was very rich from the milk or cream in it, and lightly sweetened, so I added some of the lump sugar that was on the table. It was so good that I was surprised when I finished the pot! Our winning entree was the ragout. We could taste a generous glug of white wine, and plenty of garlic in there with shredded duck and cooked collards, topped with shaved parm. I would not have thought to put that combination together and really enjoyed it! The burger was very nice as well, with slaw and pickles. The fries were delightful. For the scones, the current jam is a cranberry for the holidays, which was really nice with a smear of clotted cream.
If you enjoy a good tea, I highly recommend Asterisk. If you do not care for a full tea, they have very nice options and you do not have to order from the same side of the menu as your party, which is a very nice option. They were also very generous about splitting dishes, which we really appreciated.