looking across the Italian Garden to the windows of the Dining Room Restaurant
Butchart Gardens is a sprawling public garden on Canada’s Vancouver Island north of Victoria. People with cruise ship port stops in Victoria usually have a variety of excursions to Butchart Gardens among the excursions offered for Victoria. It may be for just the garden, include the nearby butterfly garden, or include tea at the Dining Room restaurant in the former estate house at the garden. For people who are not visiting the garden from a cruise ship, afternoon tea is served between 11am and 3pm, Dinner is available there from 5-8pm during summer months, but it is a different menu from afternoon tea.
Butchart Gardens
Reservations made in advance are highly recommended for afternoon tea there, especially if you want it near lunchtime. We made reservations a week in advance and only had options for 11:30 and earlier or 2pm and later because everything in between was already booked. We opted for 2pm and the restaurant was not crowded at that time. It was midweek though so on weekends it may be full even then.
tea menu
The tea menu offers options for gluten-free, dairy sensitive. vegetarian, vegan, children’s, and children’s vegetarian. The menu displays all of the items included and a choice from a list of different teas (and other drink options for children). When making the reservation you also select if you want the regular menu or one of the other options for each person on the reservation. We ordered one regular and two gluten free selections. The items were nearly the same from one menu to the other except of course that the gluten free ones were made with non-wheat flours. The waiter said that the chef was a celiac so he knew what he was doing on the gluten free. He definitely did. Most items tasted much the same as non-gluten free versions. I’ve never been able to make a light fluffy gluten free biscuit (in the American definition of a biscuit, not a cookie!) The gluten-free scones at the tea, which is similar to biscuit dough, were totally light and fluffy, just like the regular sort.
a table in the Dining Room restaurant
We had a table by a window overlooking the Italian garden, which is in what was once the tennis court on the estate. I got the rose tea and my mom and sister went with Bachlor Button. Both were quite good. They brought out fancy menus when we were first seated, but since all the food is included you’re really just selecting a type of tea. It’s nice to see what all the food that comes with it is though. There’s quite a variety of both sweet and savory items.
English Trifle
They first bring out a pot of tea for each person. It’s loose-leaf tea so there’s a strainer provided to pour it through keeping leaves out of the cup. Mostly they stayed in the pot without falling into the strainer though. The first food to come out is a fancy little glass filled with English Trifle, which has cake and berries and cream. It’s quite good.
tea stand for one person
Following that they bring out the main tea stands, which are several layers tall. They brought two stands out to our table. One just for my mom with one each of the items from the regular menu stacked on its layers. The other had 2 of each item in the gluten-free form and was set between my sister and I for us to share. They all fit, but it definitely looked more crowded than the one with just one of each item.
tea stand for two people
Almost everything looked the same other than the actual breads on some of the sandwiches varied from the gluten free version to the regular one, and one of the desserts the waiter called lemon on the regular one, but not on the gluten free though the coloring was similar.
scones on the top of the tea stand
There were a several things the waiter pointed out that were best eaten first since they were served hot. One was the scone on the top and another a sausage roll on the bottom. The third hot item was a little savory tart. All were quite tasty and the chef was as good with gluten free pastry dough as he was with scones, it being soft and flaky just like non-gluten free. Unfortunately they did not sell a cookbook with his recipes for those doughs.
looking into the show greenhouse
There were so many little sandwiches and desserts that none of us could eat all of them. We each had a little box to take back to the hotel for dinner. The tea also included a little boxed chocolate. Mine made it all the way home before it got eaten, and it was delicious.
rose garden
The afternoon tea was quite nice. The restaurant is pleasantly decorated and the service good. You can relax and eat at your own pace while enjoying the view. It’s a bit pricey, but not as bad as it looks since the listed menu price is in Canadian dollars. You don’t pay in advance when making reservations, that is done after the meal.
bridge in the Japanese Garden
We enjoyed our leisurely afternoon tea as well as having all the time we wanted to stroll around the garden and visit the gift shop since we were there on our own rather than on a cruise ship excursion with limited time.
pathway in the Japanese Garden
Butchart Gardens has a variety of different gardens and quite a lot of fountains. Pathways wind between the gardens and through each one so it’s nice to have time enough to see it all.
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