MoMo & Coco

Lillie’s Victorian – Christmas Bar High Tea (NYC)

Where the elves and Santa party during the festive season.

 

Our experience

High tea is not a NYC forte — after quite a number of high tea experiences in NYC, we have yet to come across a venue that offers the lavish dessert spreads seen in Asia and Australia, or the cultivated creativity of desserts seen in London.  Over the last seven years in NYC, our New York Christmas tradition has been to partake in a Christmas-themed afternoon tea.  This year, we visited two: AnnTremet (see previous review here), and also Lillie’s.  

 

Once December hits, NYC is flooded with Christmas lights, Christmas markets, and Christmas bars. Not being drinkers ourselves, we have skipped the bars for the most part. But when we heard that one of those bars offers a high tea, you can bet that we made a reservation asap. 😛  On an ordinary day, Lillie’s is decked as a gothic Victorian-style haunted house. We have also seen it decorated as an Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy in the springtime, and around Halloween, with more ghosts and skeletons than a graveyard. During the festive season, Lillie’s is festooned with tinsel and sparkling lights, and thumping with Christmas carols blasting from mega speakerphones and the raucous cheers of semi-drunk patrons. 

 

Lillie’s high tea ($90++ for 2 persons) is served on a traditional three-tiered tower, and is very simple in style. On our visit, the bottom tier featured a number of (bone dry) sandwich triangles, of cucumber, chicken salad, smoke salmon and fig jam. The middle tier saw a collection of mini muffins, and breakfast-style pastries such as croissants and danishes. For the sweet ending, there were three macarons, and a pot of creme brulee. These last morsels were probably the highlights of an otherwise very average high tea food offering. 

 

Our verdict 

Unlike in the UK and in Asia, the high tea experience in NYC is for the most part, more about the setting than the food. Lillie’s falls into that category. Its high tea food is a complete afterthought, but even so, consider Lillie’s if you are looking to celebrate Christmas in NYC in a space re-imagined as a nightclub or bar where Santa and his elves would party before (and also after) their Christmas present drop. For that experience alone, we can’t think of anything else quite like it in the city.

Dessert adventure checklist

  1. ☑ Dessert destination: Lillie’s Victorian Establishment, 13 E 17th Street, Union Square/Gramercy, Manhattan.
  2. ☑ Budget: $$-$$$.
  3. ☑  Sweet irresistibles: High Tea.
  4. ☑  Must-eat:  Come for the decorations, rather than the food.
  5. ☑  The short and sweet story:  Where the elves and Sanat party during the festive season.

Leave a comment