Photo Essay: Unitea Divides the Sexes

It’s the perfect mother-daughter tradition, right? Afternoon tea after touring a museum and before a bit more shopping. What could be more refined, more classic, more spot-on, by George?

Unitea couldn’t be more opposite. This spring, Chef Kristine Subido created a hipster bridge between lunch and dinner and, she’s hoping, a bridge between the sexes over a river of tea.

There are no white gloves here, though there are cucumber sandwiches, if you want them. Or sliders and beer, too. Rather than violins, you’ll spread jam to jazz and mellow techno. Lace is replaced by chrome, there’s red instead of pink, and your drink can have a little kick.

The basic menu is divided into guys and gals options, though either gender can bend the rules and order off the other side. My daughter and I were making dinner of this, so we ordered one of each with the intention of cutting everything in half. We like to share and compare.

For $30 per person, the Teatotaler menu includes five small bites—the gals’ is more traditional tea fare, while the guys’ is more traditional barroom. You also share a boat of treats accompanied by Devonshire cream, lemon curd and jam, and an individual pot of hot tea or an iced tea of the day.

Our gals plate included:

A Brie, basil and roasted tomato grilled brioche so good our waitress brought us a second.

A smoked salmon and roasted fennel cannoli and a blue cheese and red grape cannoli, both slightly disconcerting in texture and taste.

A chilled shrimp and cucumber salad on rosemary bread that let the cucumber shine.

A half a curry deviled egg. We are big curry fans, so that alone made this bite better.

On the guys side, we had:

Beef tartare toasts with white truffle drizzle. Yes, I assured my daughter when I explained “tartare,” it’s safe to eat.

Grilled beef tenderloin with dried fruit chutney, a great sweet-and-salty burst of flavor.

Mini Angus beef sliders with bread-and-butter pickles. I’m still trying to grow a more discerning palate so I can appreciate Angus beef over plain old beef.

Sea salt and parmesan frites with lemon aioli, which my daughter pronounced the best even before she discovered the aioli underneath.

A Serrano ham, quince and manchego grilled brioche that really requires one of the beers below to cool the salt.

We devoured our little boat of sweets that followed, brimming with macaroons, scones, madeleines, carrot bread and some tiny tarts topped with strawberries fresh from the nearby Green City Farmers’ Market. Our waitress informed us that we were the first to polish them off since the tea service began. I was not proud of this distinction. But my daughter was still hoping for more tarts.

The really unique thing about Unitea is that you might decide not to have tea at all. Served from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m., it does border on cocktail hour. For those who might be going out later and need a little food fortitude with a warm-up drink, there are:

Mar-TEA-nis: They offer three fruit- and tea-infused flavors with Grey Goose Vodka for an extra $10 per person.

Bubbly TEA: Not the same as bubble tea in Chinatown. This is a glass of Moet Chandon White Star or Schramsberg Rose for an extra $12 per person.

Masculini-TEA: Choose from one of four handcrafted beers such as locally made Goose Island Matilda or Chimay Triple for an extra $8 per person. “The hops is the guys’ version of tea,” says Chef Subido.

We gals had more shopping to do, so we stuck with the cocoa truffle and ginger teas. And after sinking the boat of cookies, we had no room for anything more, anyway. We donned our pillbox hats and elbow-length gloves and set off down the street.