A Tale of Two High Teas - Pt 2: Buvette Petit Feast

Although I love a traditional High Tea and thoroughly enjoyed our first experience at the Burbury Terrace, we were also recently lucky enough to be treated to a refreshing and exciting twist on tradition at the re-launched Buvette Bistro & Wine Bar Petit Feast. The Petit feast is designed to be enjoyed somewhere between breakfast and lunch and is a perfect combination of the elements of a traditional high tea and a lazy brunch with an added unique chic French twist.

Buvette Bar & Bistro is located underneath Hotel Realm in Barton and offers a little taste of French inspired dining right here in Canberra. The chic interior of white tiles, plush leather seats and lengthy windows had me picturing I was seated in a street-side cafe in my dream destination of Paris.

Although the Petit Feast experience is designed to be fancy and indulgent, I loved the fact that the atmosphere at Buvette was much more relaxed and less feminine than a traditional High Tea setting making it suitable for a perfect date location with your significant other, outing with the family or friends. My partner certainly felt much more comfortable dining with me than at a traditional High Tea and we noticed there were quite a few other couples enjoying the Petit Feast nearby.

Like a High Tea the Petit Feast offers courses of savouries and sweets but with a much wider selection of different and exciting morsels to savour that I probably wouldn’t normally get the chance to try.

The Feast starts with a complimentary glass of rose on arrival which was a perfect light and fruity accompaniment to our first course of two large, fresh Clyde River oysters. For an extra $15 you can also add bottomless mimosas to your feast which I would highly recommend as orange juice and sparkling go down so well with brunch!

As we finished off our oysters we were presented with the most heavenly looking Charcuterie and cheese board including Queensland smoked salami, duck parfait, tomato and ricotta quiches, mini finger sandwiches, chicken and asparagus wraps, pickled cucumbers, sweet, dried figs and a whole assortment of different cheeses, lavosh bread and olives. Much to my partner’s delight and also one of my favourites on the savoury platter were these little mouthwatering, hot meat pies.

The savoury course was followed by an equally impressive array of delicate and beautiful fresh desserts that were almost too pretty to eat! After all the savouries I struggled to finish off my share of the desserts but I did manage to at least have a little nibble of everything including the mini tartlets, profiteroles, friands, crème brûlée and these very fresh and delicious puddings. I’m not usually a crème brûlée fan but was surprised to find that it was my most favourite dish on the platter!

I loved everything about the Petit Feast including the brunch style mid-morning timing of the feast which made it a perfect way to start the weekend and also left plenty of time to sleep off my food coma in the afternoon.