Chado Tea Room

This location is now officially CLOSED.

Yes, English ‘tea’, meaning a bunch of sandwiches, will put you into a food coma. By you, I mean me. So either have a lot of tea, or expect a nap afterwards.
In any event, with the above disclaimer, I can say that these mini sandwiches melt in the mouth. I prefer this to Soho House in London. Yes, I’m name dropping. Because that’s how you get ahead in London, right?
Luckily, this is LA, where we don’t stand on ceremony. And Japanese people know how to do the English thing.

Dish (& its star ratings):
Afternoon tea menu (opted for the Darjeeling & Japanese green tea — can’t remember varietal but waitress said it was the best/​most popular):
* Mediterranean sandwich [goat cheese, watercress, oliveade] (3): this was my least favorite of the 3 given. It was just so-​so.
* Punjab sandwich [eggs marinated in lapsang souchong tea, with mayo green onions] (4.5): this was savory, juicy, and delicious!
* Souchong chicken [shredded chicken with mayo cranberry-​lingonberry sauce] (3.8): the chicken was a bit dried but the delish cranberry sauce balanced it out.
When:
— mid March
Crowd:
— 95% L.O.Ls (ladies-​of-​leisure)!
Interiors:
— Meh. I think they could step it up in terms of interior décor to match purpose of afternoon tea. Small dining room (maybe 10 tables?) adjacent to tea shop.
Service:
— 4.5 stars. Attentive and courteous.
Overall:
— Great place of low-​key afternoon tea~
— Would like to try the Limerick and Smoked salmon sandwiches next time.

Overall, I liked it, although reservations are definitely recommended. I walked in on a Saturday afternoon, and there was a baby shower group (with a celebrity present) and a women’s book club taking over most of the dining room.
When I finally was able to sit down, I ordered 2 half sandwiches, some tea, and a scone, but my waitress wasn’t really communicative and didn’t tell me that the salmon sandwiches were an extra $ 3 and that my meal would cost the same as the afternoon tea set, which I would have ordered instead had I realized.
Also, my one small scone took fooooorever to come out. Like, I was done eating and had finished my entire pot of tea before that scone made an appearance at my table. (Were they out of scones? Do they make the scones from scratch on order? I have no idea because my waitress didn’t say anything except «the scone is coming soon» after I reminded her that I had ordered one.)
Also, I agree with whomever said that atmosphere is a bit shabby-​chic/​senior citizen. Still, I enjoyed my tea and sandwiches immensely. I will definitely come back to Chado, although maybe not to this location.

I spent my birthday with Elliott Gould…
my BFF took me here on a Friday afternoon on my 40^th birthday. she made a reservation, but we didn’t need one — we were the only two in here except for Elliott Gould and his guest.
We chose our own seat, looked thru the menu — I was already stuffed from a lunch with my sweetie, so we decided on 2 types of tea and dessert. I’m pretty sure the desserts are from somewhere else (I saw them pulling a box out of a cooler), which isn’t a big deal. I was there for the tea, really.
it was a bit slow, but they don’t bring you the tea until its brewed and in a cute little pot.
Our teas arrived and we drank one pot of Chai, with Soy Milk — (reena’s chai —- YUM!). The other one is a new one that is Wine inspired — and we instantly hated it. It seriously tasted like soap. When asked what we thought — we were honest — and they took it back and brought us another chai variety (we’re chai fans!) that we were pleased with. no charge on that soap tea, thankfully!
The staff brought out my dessert with a candle and every single staff member sang happy birthday to me! Although, it was more of their library-voice…not sure why — not like they’d disturb anyone other than Elliott Gould & friend — who, by the way did NOT join in song…
Overall, I enjoyed my time here. I’d like to check out the food. I walked home with a bag of chai to enjoy at home — and since I live so close, I’ll totally be back for more! They have a large selection of teas you can purchase by the ouce. You don’t need to eat/​drink at the restaurant.
the décor is pretty weak & needs updating — but honestly, I did not care. Like I said, I was in it for the tea and time with my BFF!
Elliott Gould left, walked past me & my friend — without a glance or a birthday wish. Oh well.

…If I could, I would make this 3 ½ stars.
The short version is that the sandwiches are great, the tea selection is excellent and the pastries are very nice, but the service… Oh my! What can I say about the service?
The place was empty. As the sign said, we seated our selves. The waiter walked by, then walked by again. Then I got up and asked if we needed to order at the store. The waiter walked by and brought us our menus and glasses of water. Tic-​tac. The place was still pretty empty. About 5 minutes later the waiter returned and speaking in a monotone voice said something about us just missing the rush and them having to clean up after the previous people there. He inquired as to what we were going to have and as I and my friend were ordering he mumbled to him self that he should probably write this down. We agreed.
Our tea took forever. Our sandwiches took longer. The microwaved tomato soup, which was actually pretty good, was forgotten. However, brought out a bit later in an instant. Go microwaves!
As I mentioned, the food was good. We ordered the Afternoon Tea menu, That being said, it took us one hour and a half from beginning to end. A bit too long to stay in the tacky purple-​walled atmosphere and listen to sleepy music. Perhaps, that’s what tea time is all about? Perhaps not. Either way, next time, I’m calling ahead and taking everything to go.

This review is just for the tea.
Highly recommend reservations for this location. They first asked us if we had reservations which we did not, but they happened to have one open table for two. Every other table had an actual black reserved placard in it’s place.
The selection of tea is absolutely incredible. For anyone that truly enjoys a good cup of tea… you will love it here.
My friend and I had a large pot of the Black Afternoon Vanilla tea with milk and it was strong but tasty.
The entire teapot was less than &6!!! If we didn’t just have breakfast we would have totally ordered the food spread. It looked great and would have been a great compliment to our tea drinking experience.
Definitely recommend!

Love it!
Place:
Really cute with plenty of seating and really good service.
Food:
I usually split the afternoon tea combo they have with someone. Which consists of one pot of tea, a tower of three different things: your choice of three sandwiches (6 in total, 3 on each side,) 2 scones with homemade jelly and whipping cream and dessert. So good! Plenty of teas to chose from.
Parking:
Umm, street parking, bring CC or quarters if you come before 6pm… Either i’ve been lucky or its pretty easy to find parking on this street because usually there’s parking up front or just 2 doors down.
If you’re a fan of tea and want a cute, good place to meet some friends or just want relaxing time alone, this is it.
Enjoy!

My bestie and I love tea rooms! I had to take her to one!
Accidentally went to this one… I wanted to go to the downtown location with the garden. Oh well…
We split the afternoon tea… this came with 4 quarter sandwiches, a scone with clotted crème and jam and some cake, a cookie with fruit…
We ordered the Reena’s Chai Spice with Milk and it was warm, spicy and good.
I want to try the dtla location next!

Oh-​how I love-​o my Chado!
The teas are divine (esp. my fave, the birthday tea)!!
But the tomato soup. Oh, the tomato soup !!!
It’s vegetarian, but oh-​so-​creamy dreamy, with no bothersome bits of tomato to trip you up.
And then the sandwiches.
Any average lunch can be turned into a teatime with a soup and sandwich combo.
Which ones to choose? The Smoked Salmon (Served open faced on dark rye bread with cream cheese then topped with baby dill and a slice of lemon) is scrumptious, rich and filling while light and the Souchoung (Shredded smoked Chicken Breast salad with a special twist of Cranberry Lingonberry sauce) is delightfully surprising!
The full afternoon tea is good.
Not a big fan of the cream with the scones as it’s more of a yogurt than a clotted cream and I’m big on the traditional stuff!
Not the best in town but perfect for an everyday, casual afternoon tea with friends, family or peers.
P. S. There are gifts galore for tea lovers or for bridal showers/​housewarmings/​weddings/​graduation, etc.
Tons of perfect little teapots and strainers for the tea lover or a precious little tea sampler with 20 of Chado’s most popular teas for only $ 25!

A friend had a groupon here so we decided to go for afternoon tea. We parked around the corner to avoid valet and walked on over to the the room.
It’s really quite fanciful when you walk in. If you like looking at different tea sets and ornamented tea cups, you’ll really like it. As for the dining area… everything was purple, which I thought was pretty out of the ordinary for a restaurant… who paints walls purple? blegh
We each ordered the Afternoon tea. Three teirs of sandwiches, scones, and dessert: The sandwiches were delicious, salmon and watercress being my favorite. Scones were good but I was already getting full so don’t think I was experiencing the full extent of it’s deliciousness so you guys should go and rate it yourselves! The dessert wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, they chose it for us. which i thought was odd.
As for the tea, delicious! I ordered the White Peony (Chinese white tea). It was sweet and light, loved every droplet. Afternoon tea does comes with anything you choose off their tea selection, so if you’re there to get your moneys worth. choose one of the pricier ones =p

A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E. !!!
Parking was easy for me, I found a metered spot on the street. Don’t pay the $ 5 valet! Walking in, it seems kind of small, especially because there was a giant baby shower going on. 10+ ladies can make it pretty noisy in the room, but my gf and I enjoyed our girly times.
We both ordered the afternoon tea service for $ 18, which came with choice of tea, 4 ½ sandwiches, a cookie, a scone, a pastry, some fresh strawberries, jam, and cream. Here’s the breakdown:
tea– I ordered the peach melba iced tea, since it was a bazillion degrees outside. It was very fruity and light, quite refreshing, but I wanted it to be sweeter.
sandwiches– DELICIOUS! I liked the fact that they toasted the bread, and their egg salad was awesome (tea-​soaked eggs). The chicken salad had a bit too much cranberry for my taste, but I liked their mediterannean one.
scone– came out warm! pair it with their homemade cream, and it was heaven. super super good.
pastries/​desserts– we had a pound cake and some sort of banana cake. i was too full to eat the banana one, but the pound cake was good. nothing special though. neither was the cookie.
In the end, we had a really great time catching up. I would have been happy with just the tea and the sandwiches! Oh, the service was awesome– our waiter was nice and helped us decide on which tea to order. Also, the tea shop is super cute!