Eve Mickendrow’s story is a stroke of SMA serendipity: a southern girl moves to Mexico, meets a Yorkshire chef and opens an English tearoom. Sounds like a bit of a fairytale, right? For over 25 years, Eve owned another successful tea room outside of Charleston called Time Well Spent. She moved to SMA eight years ago to spend more time with her sister, Deborah Richards, who owns Chinaberry Farms; a favorite of many of the chefs in town.
I first met the chef, Ryan McNab, a certified Naples Pizza maker, back in November, 2022 when he was visiting San Miguel de Allende. Returning permanently that following year, he called himself Mr. Crumpet, taking on the role of providing England’s best eats, such as Crumpets and Shortbread, to the hundreds of Sanmiguelenses who had a taste for all things British. I was one of them.
In October, 2023, he did a chef collaboration with local SMA chef, Pablo Gil, of Bennu and brought something new to the table: Panuozzo; a street food from Italy. As a chef first in England, we’ve followed his career, most recently working in the kitchens at Marulier, but his talents caught the attention of Eve Mickendrow and the two have paired up at The Tea Room; opening May 1st. The restaurant is beautiful with lots of natural light, dark wood with contrasting neutral walls, and jars of loose tea, lounging fairies and vintage tea sets scattered throughout the restaurant. I thoroughly expected Fancy Nancy to be there throwing a tea party for all her friends.
There’s all sorts of fabulous teas like Earl Grey, British Breakfast, Passionate Mango, Ginger Peach, Lavender Lemon and Jasmine Green…just to name a few.
The menu is typically English: Quiche, Sausage rolls (English sausage meat mix wrapped in golden flakey puff pastry); Potted pork with toasted sliced bread which is an almost pate style spread made by slow cooking belly pork with a mix of herbs and spices and hand mixing it all back together with the rendering Jus from the cooking process; traditional scones with jam and clotted cream and finger sandwiches: Smoked salmon and cream cheese, traditional cucumber sandwiches, Cheese savory sandwiches which are a blend of blend of mixed grated cheese, herbs and spices, charred pimento peppers and wholegrain mustard.
Also opening May 1: The Fairy Garden, a special place for little girls to play dress up before afternoon tea is served at the children’s table right outside the dressing room. There’s no such thing as being overdressed for this party.
The menu is made fresh daily and is reasonably priced using high quality ingredients from Chinaberry Farms and other local suppliers. High Tea is just $400 pesos.
When you feel like doing “absolutamente nada”, which, by the way, is a very respectable thing to do at high tea, or any tea for that matter, come down and catch the magic that awaits you at The Tea Room; a unique addition to San Miguel de Allende’s collection of new restaurants.
The Tea Room Salida a Celaya 6, 2nd Floor San Miguel de Allende, GTO Mexico Opening May 1st Thursday -Sunday 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM Phone: 415 216 9381 +1-843-797-8500 Chef: Ryan McNab
