TEA WITH TRACY
SECOND LOCATION OFFERS THE FULL RESTAURANT EXPERIENCE
The blasted-out hollow of a former stone quarry is an odd place to find fine china, but there I sat, teacup and saucer in hand. Word of mouth and chance of proximity both had landed me at Tea with Tracy, set on a new green within the newly developed Quarry Walk in Oxford. Rough, vertical scarps of granite outside could not have seemed farther away from the bright, colorful interior, just as “tea room” hardly conjures the reality of a dinner menu with half its length comprising steak. The second location of Tea with Tracy, now just completing its first year, is more than the name implies.
The location itself is on the “more” side as well. It seats more than 100 diners, compared to the 2011 original on Seymour’s Bank Street, which holds 40, and is regularly booked solid.
Tracy Tenpenny — possibly an ideal name for a tea room owner — said her first tea room was becoming such a popular event space they were running out of room for anything else. By 2018, just as she and husband Joel began looking for a larger space, they were contacted by the Quarry Walk’s developer, whose marketing firm had identified their business as an ideal contributor to the $70 million mixed-use area, then in the planning stages. With businesses including a Market 32 supermarket, Five Guys, Char & Lemon pizzeria, an old-timey ice cream parlor, the Oxford location of the Sitting Duck Tavern, a bank, a clothing store, plus a 150-unit condo and apartment complex, and nearly two miles of walking trails, the development has made quite a change in the largely forested residential community. After the unusual pains of a planned 2020 opening, the tea room welcomed guests for the first time that November.
Enter through a tiny shop where any of the room’s selection of 220 teas, teapots, even socks, are sold, and choose from a seat in plush divan “booths” or kitchen-like tables, all set with linen and glass. The new space is all soft blues and whites, with light streaming from outside through paned windows of the interior partitions.
I sit down and scan the tea menu, eyes running over familiar names like Earl Grey, Darjeeling and English Breakfast, to myriad flavor combinations (chocolate mint, Baklava, cinnamon plum), and exotics like Purple Kenyan, Huang Shan Mountain yellow, and Pu-erh fermented black tea.
Dazzled by these decisions, I’m grateful to receive a tailor-made marketing sucker punch in the form of a menu section titled “Author Teas.” These, with names like Emily Dickinson’s (Jasmine tea, rose petals, jasmine blossoms, marigold and cornflower petals), Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s (black teas from India, Sri Lanka, China and Taiwan, plus Bergamot oil) are almost tea cocktails. I choose the Edgar Allan Poe: pu-erh and lapsang souchong black teas, beetroot and Bergamot oil.
My companion goes with oatmeal raisin cookie, which smells exactly like it sounds. The Poe is earthy and pungent with the mix of black teas, but rounded from bitterness and given a ruby hue by the beets. It is excellent. The floral, gilded teacups match each other, and no others in the room. Chairs show a similarly eclectic nature, many of them reupholstered by the Tenpennys.
A printed plate arrives at the table with slices of bread and butter, the former turning out to be Tracy’s own lemon pepper scones. These are intensely savory, and I detect hints of onion powder and garlic beyond the peppery citric bite. These would be excellent with breakfast, which is served exclusively at the Oxford location daily. A flight of four flutes of mimosas is optional, as this location also sports a liquor license.
The first plate we order arrives with a small wheel of warm brie under blueberry compote and a sprig of thyme. An array of thick, buttered toast points join the brie, and I’m delighted to bite in and discover a dusting of minced and toasted garlic atop the bread. The experience with the brie and fruit is luxurious.
“I’ve wanted a tea room as far as I can remember,” Tracy says. “I’ve been collecting tea sets for years, and those were the ones we started off with. We love what we do here.”
Later, her husband echoes those
exact words, and continues: “We have a kitchen staff of three right now. If we didn’t love it, we couldn’t do this.” Joel has journeyed from a start in restaurant kitchens around Mystic (the couple, both from Groton, met in high school), and on to time in the Navy, acceptance at the Culinary Institute of America, with new family obligations keeping him from enrolling, to college.
“I’ve always wanted to do fine dining, and having a dinner program here as opposed to just tea service in Seymour has allowed us to do that.” This is the “more” of the Oxford location, beyond the increased space, and the subhead to the name above the door: Tea with Tracy & TWT Steak.
The interior windows, floors, pergola, walls, mirrors — even the Art Deco and Victorian-themed bathrooms — were done with additional help from sous chef Evan Mansfield and Joel, who also uses his MBA to do all the books.
Joel’s contributions extend to his duties as head chef, where the extensive dinner menu he created transforms the tea room each night into TWT Steak. This, though, isn’t another macho, creamed-spinach-T-bone-andScotch Wall Street boys’ club (although feel free to splurge on wine and the $110 tomahawk steak). Joel’s vision includes filets alongside bouillabaisse, lavender-crusted cod, pasta from Durante’s in West Haven, game from
Fossil Farm in New Jersey, which supplies kangaroo and lamb chops from Australia, bison from Colorado, and venison from New Zealand.
The Southern Hemisphere theme dovetails with Tracy’s own Australian heritage, which gave rise to the inhouse baked crumpets, scones (pronounced “sconns” down under), as well as other baked-daily goods and special orders like a six-tier cupcake tower topped by a six-inch fondant cake.
Joel mentions that the pace of diners has been picking up steadily through 2021 in Oxford, with developing groups of regulars, and events booked as far out as May 2022. “The events have been such a huge deal for us,” Tracy says. “Mother’s Day is our Super Bowl, every year.”
I select the kangaroo medallions, and pair them with a salad and ginger glazed carrots. Kangaroo: lean and tender, effectively being the deer of Australia, has a familiar taste profile to venison. The carrots are cooked to sweet sharpness with the ginger, and add just the needed amount of moisture — plus a toothy crunch — to the medallions, which were nicely browned, if slightly overdone to qualify as medium-rare.
My companion’s plank of chicken Milanese sat golden atop a bed of fresh arugula, under a perfectly fried sunnyside egg. The chicken, from its light, crispy breading, to the flavorful meat and hits of yolk and garlic aioli, was near perfect. A side of sliced garlic new potatoes weren’t browned crisp, but prepared like fresh home fries, and very pleasing in both flavor and texture. The balsamic dressing, arriving in dainty pitchers to the side of the salads, was the genuine article, fit for a lunch break in Modena.
The dining experience is important to both Tracy and Joel. Quiet piano music feels like a part of the air during our dinner. The colors, the materials, the food and drink selections, everything seems thoughtfully made to inspire relaxing conversation. The owners say they rarely see a phone in a guest’s hand unless they’re taking a photo. The experience for me was that the Tenpennys have each achieved their idea: a tea room for the morning and lunch, with delicious brews and tasty baked treats, and a fine spot for a heartier dinner, in a setting to round the corners off any day. My feeling is I’ll be back.
This article appears in the November 2021 issue of Connecticut Magazine. Follow on Facebook and Instagram @connecticutmagazine and Twitter @connecticutmag.