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Hopefully by the time you are reading this restaurant review the days will be full of sunshine and the evenings will be warm and balmy with romantic sunsets…and we’ll all have put our wellies away until winter! On one of those sunny days in April I called at Donington-le-Heath Manor House to meet a friend for coffee, and whilst there I started chatting with Lauren, who runs Classics Tea Room. The café is set in the gardens of the Manor House, so you can imagine how peaceful and relaxing it was to sit outside and enjoy the surroundings. Lauren asked if I could come back sometime with a view to including a restaurant review in a future issue, and I was only too delighted to oblige.
It is always nice to visit an establishment that prides itself on freshly home-cooked food, sourced with as many local ingredients as is possible – here we have a gem at Classics Tea Room!
The café is open for morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea, from 11.00am until 4.00pm. However, they do hold some special themed evenings, so watch out for what’s coming soon – they sell out fast! I re-visited in July, the midst of the wet weather, so unfortunately we could not sit outside. This wasn’t a problem as the inside of the café is also quite grand – set inside an old barn with exposed stone walls and wooden beams above, quite literally the sort of building you see on the TV programme Grand Designs.
As we were only there for lunch we opted to take two courses. My main course was roasted garlic chicken breast with salad – a generous portion of chicken served with a roasted garlic sauce and sautéed potatoes. I also chose salad as opposed to vegetables. Lauren said the salad was grown there at the Manor House in their kitchen garden – literally outside the back door of the kitchen, so definitely no air-miles, plus brownie points on my carbon footprint to boot!! Everything was cooked to perfection and the salad was as fresh as could be, having been made up to order. My friend, Karen, opted for the Goats Cheese Tart with salad. This was a very abstract looking dish, a delight to look at, and equally as delightful to eat. It is cooked to order, so there’s no soggy pastry here! Karen was amazed at the size of the salad, normally just a token gesture of lettuce, cucumber and tomato, but not here with the selection of leaves, red onion, carrot, peppers, cucumber and tomatoes – again it was created to order, so if there is anything you don’t like just mention it when your order is taken and they will cater to your needs.
For desserts we wandered up to the counter to study the sweets cabinet. There was an excellent selection of home-made cakes from sponges to fruit cakes to mixed berry crumble and custard – we were spoilt for choice! They also make their own fat free, sugar free fruit cake especially suited to diabetics and slimmers, but very more-ish for us non-diabetics too! I chose the coffee and chocolate sponge, which was very tasty – it definitely had that home-made flavour. Karen went for the chocolate ganache, one of their specialities that is nearly always on the menu – a rich filled cake topped with a luxuriously shiny chocolate ganache – not recommended for slimmers I suspect!!
We had a most relaxing lunchtime meal, and made our minds up to make a point of coming again to one of their special themed evenings. Classics Tea Room also cater for outside events, so if you have an occasion such as a christening or birthday looming why not give them a call for some more information and advice.
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» How to get here
Opening Times
Daily 11am to 4pm
Classics Tea Room
The Manor House Barn
Manor Road
Donington Le Heath
Leicestershire
LE67 2FW
Tel: 01530 817214
Email: info@classics1485.co.uk