About the Food
One could write a book on our sinful and irresistible foods. Many have indeed written about it, The New York Times, The Starledger, The Daily Record, The Princeton Packet, Town Topics and dozens of local newspapers and magazines.
Our menu has changed somewhat since those pioneer days down in Florida, but our motto still stands. We always use the finest ingredients; fresh fruits and berries, exotic vegetables and salads, sinful and scrummy creams and custards and the most unusual and unique combinations that would send the Victorians into fainting spells!
This is English cooking? You might well ask, because yes it is my friends, it is indeed! The English have gotten a bad rap over the years for dull, boring, plain and badly cooked food. We went through a devastating war that wracked our country and starved our people.
My mum, Mrs. Gaffney still has a fit if you throw anything out or waste even half an inch of the broccoli stem. She was a child in the last war and remembers well the luxury of butter or an egg per family, per week and the wonder of an orange or a banana that an American Marine might have given them, yes those were hard and dreadful times. But go past those dark years to the twenties and further back to the Victorian and Georgian Times and back and back and you will find glorious, decadent and highly imaginative dishes. Influenced by travel to far and exotic lands and by hoards of aristocracy who had nothing better to do than entertain and throw grand balls and social events, each trying to out do the other, English cuisine was far from dull.
We don’t serve Quails eggs, Poached Pike or Carp, Roasted Venison, Jugged Hare or Wild Boar and we don’t make pyramids of Quince and Crab Apples, set in Aspic or Iced Fruit Juices made by hand, later to become Ice cream! No! We buy Haagen Dazs and we make these, we think very comparable dishes….
Sally Lunns had to be different and very special, if it was going to survive in this huge and dog eat dog industry called, the restaurant trade. We wanted to be English and we wanted our customers to be able to recognize and try our foods……this is how we did it!
Soups, they are one of the biggest selling item on any menu, they have to be good, hearty and full of fresh veggies, beans and meats, served with a chunk of French Bread, they are almost a meal. We never serve, Chicken Noodle or plain old cream of Mushroom or Turkey, we serve Chicken and Wild rice, Hungarian Mushroom with paprika and cream, Carrot and Fennel, with a bite of ginger, Fresh Tomato Bisque, Potato -Leek and Fresh Cream of Asparagus, filled with tons of fresh asparagus.
Our sandwiches are all made on organic whole wheat bread and when we say fresh roasted Turkey Breast, that’s what your going to get, freshly roasted straight out of the oven. We serve Egg and cress, English Cucumber and cream cheese, Nova Smoked Salmon and Smoked ham with imported Brie. You are not going to get a wad of thinly sliced, processed meat of unknown origin, all our meats are cooked by us and hand carved, the olde fashioned way.
Our Potpies, sausage rolls and pasties, are all made in our kitchens, fresh every day. Helens Famous Chicken Potpie- named after a woman who has lovingly made thousands of these little devils and all by hand- are filled with roasted breast of chicken, heavy cream and tons of fresh and exotic veggies, all wrapped in a pastry crust that will melt in your mouth, they are to die for. Our Cornish Pasties and Tiddy Oggis are made true to their origin. The Cornish Pasties are filled with lamb, onions, turnips and potatoes, they are dry, they are meant to be dry! Years ago, before the invention of take out, thermos flasks and plastic containers, the wives of the miners in the West of England, Cornwall, would wrap all the makings of a meat and potato lunch in a pastry pocket. The miners never surfaced to take a lunch break, so they would simply take out their pastie and there you had it, lunch! Homemade, meat, potatoes and veggies, all tucked into a delicious pastry pocket, no waste, no garbage and no recycling……quite ingenious! For those of you who like a bit of sauce, with your Pasties, we serve HP, hot and spicy it’s yummy!
Tddy Oggi’s are similar to Cornish Pasties but they are made with beef, they have carrots in them and are moister than Cornish Pasties.
Our Sausage Rolls are made with an English style sausage meat, rolled in shortcrust pastry, they are better than you would find in any English pub!
So that our customers would recognize some of the dishes on our menu, we invented The Cockney Pie. We say invented, because it doesn’t exist anywhere else, even though many people swear ours is better than any they tasted in England…..Oh well! Fresh and roasted veggies are layered on top of a homemade Foccacia bun, we then add Goat Cheese, Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs and Mozzarella, bake it in the oven for forty minutes and the result? The tastiest, highest and most delicious gourmet Pizza you have ever tasted! We are so famous for our Cockney Pie, that we copyrighted the name!
As if our basic menu wasn’t enough, we also have a specials board, with as many items on it as the menu. Just to name a few as they change daily….. Cottage Pie, a true English favourite and made in almost every home, made with sirloin steak and leeks and topped with creamy mashed potato, we always sell out! Curried Veggie Potpie, tons of fresh veggies, bananas, apples, raisins, pineapple, spices, heavy cream, mango chutney and Madras Curry, mm, mm, it’s simply delicious. Vegetarians are especially catered for with our, Ratatouille, Eggplant Stuffed with Cous Cous, Five Bean Casserole, Veggie Tortilla Lasagna- a lasagna with a twist, made with tortillas instead of pasta and filled with veggies, beans, fresh herbs and a touch of Mexico- Olde Fashioned Baked Cauliflower, with Cheddar Cheese Sauce and there’s Quiches, so different that men aren’t Real Men, if they don’t try it!
The English love fish, so do we! We make Fresh Oyster Pie, Fresh Pink Salmon and Asparagus Pie, London Fish Bake and Fresh Lobster Quiche, just to name a few!
Steak and Guinness potpie, make a great substitute for Steak and Kidney—we will make that too if you request it ahead of time.
Hungry yet? Well there’s more, there’s Dessert……..Can we talk?
Having been born with a chocolate spoon in her mouth, Theresa is the Dessert Queen. ” Dessert should always be sinful and worth the cheat. It should look scrumptious, taste scrumptious and make your mouth water. We make no excuses for the calories in our desserts, treat yourself and save the diets for the salad bar or home! Of course we do make allowances, there are desserts with no dairy and sugar free, and if arrangements are made before hand we will try and accommodate any ones dietary needs. Dessert should be a release, a time to let go and when you do it had better be worth it! ”
Here are a few of our sinful little secrets. There is nothing as good as homemade fruit pie, if it is homemade and stuffed full of fresh fruits and berries. We make our crusts from scratch, roll them out by hand and fill them with the best fruits and berries on the market. We import Blackcurrants from England and grow fresh rhubarb at home, we freeze Blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in the summer , so we will have them in the winter months when they are out of season . And the best part of all, is that we mix them all together in the wildest and most unexpected combinations, making plain ole’ pie almost gourmet!
Fruit crisps, crumbles and cobblers too can be exciting and delicious. We use the same fruit combinations and top them with chocolate chip crisp and Lavender Crisp. We use imported edible oils from Europe to make our desserts special and exclusive to Sally Lunns.
If your weakness is cake, our Olde Fashioned Chocolate or Chocolate Grenache Cakes are to die for or even more decadent is our Death by Chocolate, pure Belgium Chocolate heaped in a killer pile, takes a real chocoholic to eat an entire piece! On the lighter side you might try our Victoria Sandwich, a moist vanilla sponge filled with layers of clotted cream and fresh raspberries and strawberries. We make Rose petal layer cake, Lavender – Lemon layer cake, Sunshine cake, filled with Apricot Buttercream and Manderine Oranges and Java-Walnut layer cake, the list goes on and on.
Had enough? Wait there’s more, try Apple-Pear, Peanut, Chocolate Brownie Pudding, Mums Bread and Butter Pudding, Fresh Blueberry, Cheesecake Chocolate Pudding, Apple – Cherry Treacle, Fresh Peach Buttermilk Pudding and the list goes on and on.
Did someone say Trifle, Windsor Trifle, buttery pound cake topped with tropical fruits and soaked in cranberry and raspberry Jell-O and then topped with homemade custard and whipped cream…mm…mm!
As you can see we don’t trifle with dessert!
Now we come to the most famous and best selling item made at Sally Lunns…..our Scones. Made from a secret recipe, which has been sought after by magazines such as Gourmet Magazine, Bon Appetite to name a few, they will melt in your mouth. Made from scratch they come in many delicious flavours, served with our own homemade Clotted Cream and preserves that are made for us in Georgia, they are a treat that our customers rave over. We ship them all over the country; just warm them up and devour them!
Of course Sally Lunns would not be a Tea Shoppe if we didn’t serve Afternoon Tea. Breaking from tradition , meaning that Afternoon Tea was just that, tea that was served after noon, we serve it from the moment we open our doors. This delightful of all meals is light enough for breakfast and substantial enough for lunch. It is perhaps the most popular meal we sell. Delicate finger sandwiches made on organic whole wheat bread are garnished with fruit and salad, and arranged beautifully on a bone china tea plate. The sandwiches are followed by your choice of fresh warmed fruit or plain scone, heaps of thick Sally Lunns homemade clotted cream and strawberry preserves. Also included in the tea is a choice of over 50 imported loose teas, served hot or cold..
We also offer a range of different inclusive Tea’s. Because we cater so many birthday parties, showers, weddings and other functions, we offer a creative selection of interesting tea’s that are more substantial.
The Victoria Tea….The Ritz Afternoon Tea….The Buckingham Palace Tea and The Wimbledon Tea. A description for these Teas may be found in the catering section.
We are dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and customer satisfaction. It’s hard to set such a goal but we believe to keep us on top and one step ahead of the rest, that is what we have to do. We want our customers to feel that they have had a wonderful and nostalgic trip back through time and hope that they return again and again as many do, to sit at our table and enjoy!
Please read on for our menus, catering lists, catalogue, wholesale lists, rentals and Franchise information.
The Early Years | The Origins of the Name | About the Store | About the Food