A short and only slightly delayed train ride found us in York by lunchtime. The purpose of this visit was to have afternoon tea at Bettys, which is a Yorkshire institution and somewhere I have wanted to visit for years, but havent got round to it on previous trips to York, and I havent been to any of the places that have Bettys either. The original Bettys was opened in 1919 in Harrogate and no one knows why it was named Bettys. The story behind this successful small chain is quite interesting. A Swiss orphan, Fritz Btzer, travelled Europe learning his craft and in 1907 arrived in England. He took the wrong train and ended up in Bradford instead of the south coast, his original destination. He found work for a Swiss confectioner and by 1915 he had anglicised his name to Frederick Belmont, moved to Harrogate and opened a business as a chocolate specialist. Over the years, he diversified his business to open cafes in different towns in Yorkshire. Not all of them have survived but the original one in York has been going strong since 1937. Also, no one knows why the name Betty was chosen for the cafes.
It was a nice surprise that the queue wasnt too bad when we got there. I had expected it to be right around the square, but it wasnt. St. Helens Square, which is where its located, is really nice and there are plenty of other places to eat and drink if you dont fancy queuing. Our wait wasnt too long, only about twenty minutes or so. There was a bloke singing showtunes in front of St. Helens Church, which other people in queue seemed to enjoy, but it was too loud for me. I did an internal happy dance when he packed up and left. While we were queuing, we were saying that it must feel like being in a fishbowl as everyone in the queue and those walking past were nebbing in to see the afternoon teas and other meals. So I was happy when we were told to head to our table in the basement. Some people mightnt like the idea of sitting in the basement, but I preferred it as I didnt feel like we were on show. The interior is nice in an old fashioned olde worlde way and the tables were well spaced apart
so it didnt feel crammed. I really liked the traditional outfits the waiting staff were wearing, it felt a little like stepping back in time.
We ordered Afternoon Tea and didnt have to wait long for it to turn up. There were three tiers; sandwiches on the bottom, scone on the middle, and a trio of cakes on the top. It looked lovely and I hoped it tasted as good as it looked. I started with the sandwiches. There were four different ones, nice little dainty slices. I started with the ham and wholegrain mustard on white bread. The ham was tasty and just the right amount of mustard, not overpowering. The only niggle was the lettuce as when I took a bite of the sandwich, the strings of the lettuce wouldnt snap and I probably looked very uncouth. Next was cucumber, dill and cream cheese also on white. That was yum, too. Then I moved onto the Coronation Yorkshire chicken on brown. This one was my favourite. The chicken was delish, not too much mayo and the spice mix was very flavourful without being overpowering. Last was the Bleikers salmon in brown bread, which I had expected
to be my favourite. However, I was a bit let down by it. The bread was a bit hard, I wasnt sure if it was a bit stale or just the type of bread they used and I felt like the salmon was a bit lost in the bread. On the whole, I enjoyed the sandwiches. Now it was time to move onto the scone. This was a sultana scone and it came with strawberry jam and clotted cream. I wasnt really a scone fan until rather recently and I did enjoy this one. The scone was yummy, not too sweet or too crumbly. The strawberry jam was nice and the clotted cream was so thick. I needed to rest for a while after this as although the afternoon tea platter doesnt look like too much, it is deceptively filling. Drinking some tea helped me to make some more stomach space.
