Afternoon tea outdoors is not easy to find in New York City, but Laduree Soho offers one in a pretty garden. Take a look at my review of the tea service from finger sandwiches to sweets.

Laduree Soho

Famous for their macarons, French pastry shop Laduree has 2 shops in New York City (Soho and Upper East Side) and a handful of kiosks in malls like Hudson Yards.

The Soho location of Laduree has a restaurant with an outdoor garden seating attached to their shop where there’s a full menu beyond macarons and pastries.

RELATED: List of Places in NYC for Afternoon Tea

Reservations

You need to reserve a table through Resy. They won’t take reservations over the phone. (That is, if they ever pick up the phone.) You may have luck as a walk-in for afternoon tea since it’s a restaurant but there isn’t a guarantee.

Dress Code

There isn’t a dress code, but I always default to smart casual at afternoon tea. Look put together. Feel free to dress up.

Afternoon Tea Hours

Afternoon tea is served at Laduree Soho every day from 4PM – 6PM and the last reservation is at 5PM.

How Afternoon Tea Works at Laduree Soho

Afternoon tea is a set menu, which means that you don’t get a food selection to pick from. Whatever is prepared by the chef is what you get. One thing you can select is the tea.

The server will ask for your drink preferences first. The drink menu is on a QR code that you can scan at the table. The food on a 3-tiered tray will come out with the drinks.

Laduree Soho Afternoon Tea Menu

There are 2 afternoon teas on the menu.

Laduree Teatime
$70 per person
2 finger sandwiches
2 scones
4 savory tartlets
1 pastry, 2 macarons, 2 Eugénie (cookie)
1 coffee, tea or hot chocolate
1 mocktail
1 box of 3 macarons in a box to take home

Teatime for Kids
$39 per kid
2 finger sandwiches
2 savory tartlets
1 pastry, 1 macaron, 1 Eugénie (cookie), 2 marshmallows
1 hot chocolate

The menu and prices may change at any time.

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Laduree Soho Setting: ★★★★☆

There’s indoor and outdoor seating at Laduree Soho and on a lovely summer day, it was wonderful to sit outside. The decor is minimal but very on brand. Laduree’s tables and chairs are all in the signature Laduree light green. The lightly padded metal chairs were comfortable.

Since it was outside, and we did sit by the plants, we were constantly shooing bugs (flies and bees) away from the food. This is less of an issue when you sit closer to the middle of the restaurant, away from the plants.

Service: ★★☆☆☆

The servers were friendly but they didn’t really explain how the afternoon tea menu worked. The menu is a little confusing since it listed a bunch of pastries but we were never asked to select one.

My main complaint is how it’s impossible to get anyone on the phone when you call. I called multiple times throughout the week and the phone just kept on ringing. I was definitely frustrated with the lack of customer service on the phone.

Tea and Tea Selection: ★★★★☆

There are a few options for tea and I selected the Darjeeling. Instead of tea, you can choose coffee or hot chocolate. There are about 2 tea selections for each type, including 2 herbal teas. Not the widest tea selection, but not too small that I couldn’t find a tea I liked.

Laduree Soho steeps and strains their tea for you in the kitchen so there aren’t any loose tea or tea bags in the teapot. I appreciate this since it means your tea never gets bitter from oversteeping.

Along with the tea, you also get a mocktail, which was essentially a watered down sparkling raspberry drink.

Savories: ★★★☆☆

Tasty? Yes.

Easy to eat? No.

The smoked salmon one was easy to eat but the chopped cucumber one was hard to eat neatly since all the small cucumber bits would fall off the sandwich.

Each person gets 2 finger sandwiches and they bring out an assortment, which makes it hard to figure out who eats what. I wished they had given each person 3 finger sandwiches so it would be a little bit more filling and help to balance out the sweets.

RELATED: Afternoon Tea Course Order

Laduree Scones: N/A

At the time I went, they didn’t serve scones, but now they do.

Sweets: ★★★☆☆

Macarons on the top tier of the 3-tiered stand. I ate the green one thinking it was pistachio but it was a surprising lime basil!

RELATED: Afternoon Tea at Tiffany’s

Laduree is famous for their macarons and pastries so it’s not so much a surprise that they served so many sweets but still, it was a sweets overload. Along with the macarons, each person gets a full size dessert, and 2 marshmallow squares.

With afternoon tea, I expect the sweets course to be filled with small, bite sized treats not normal portioned desserts. The sweets were messy to eat, even with a fork but they were delicious. My favorites were the pillowy marshmallows.

Laduree Overall: ★★★☆☆

This one is a solid 3 stars. The good: Cute outdoor garden space. (One of the few places in Manhattan that offers an outdoor afternoon tea option.) The bad: Way too heavy handed with the sweets.

I’d skip the overpriced afternoon tea and go for a leisurely lunch in the pretty garden.

LOCATION:
Laduree Soho
298 West Broadway
New York, NY 10012

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