Ugly Butterfly Launches Cornish Afternoon Tea

Posted on 31st July 2023

Renowned Chef Adam Handling has launched a brand-new, luxury afternoon tea offering at his award-winning restaurant, Ugly Butterfly in St. Ives, with optional free-flowing bubbles. With stunning floor-to-ceiling views across Carbis Bay, this has to be one of the UK’s most spectacular afternoon teas.

Adam’s offering is celebrating the history and tradition of the iconic British afternoon tea, whilst maintaining Ugly Butterfly’s ethos of celebrating the very best of Cornish produce and reflecting the sustainable philosophy, for which the restaurant has become known.

Taking guests on a journey around Cornwall, the afternoon tea has a selection of sandwiches, savouries and sweets that all use ingredients from local suppliers. The sandwiches evoke traditional afternoon tea nostalgia, with ‘St. Ives Smokehouse salmon, cream cheese on rye bread’ and ‘St. Ewe egg mayonnaise, cress on malted bread’.

Savouries include the likes of ‘Hog’s pudding sausage roll, waste courgette’, ‘Crab doughnut, lemon peel puree’, ‘Lamb, spiced tartare, kimchi emulsion’, and ‘Corn, brown butter, girolle’. Naturally, no afternoon tea is complete without a scone and the Ugly Butterfly tea includes Cornish scones, baked fresh in-house every day, served with Trewithen clotted cream and strawberry jam (and, if you ask Adam, when in Cornwall, it’s jam before cream!)

The sweet selection is equally as show-stopping, with treats such as, ‘Sea buckthorn custard tart’, which uses sea berries native to Cornwall, ‘Elderflower mousse, pear, shortbread’, with elderflower the team forages from the local area, ‘Lemon verbena, meadowsweet sponge’ and, of course, a traditional Battenberg. There’s also ‘Coffee caramel, Asháninka, chocolate biscuit’, which uses chocolate from Chocolarder, the only bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Cornwall, and one of just a handful in the UK, which shares Ugly Butterfly’s commitment to sustainable and ethical practices.

The afternoon tea is accompanied by a selection of teas from Tregothnan Tea, based on the Roseland Peninsula, who planted the very first tea fields in the UK on the Tregothnan Estate which has been maintained by the same family since the 1300’s. There’s a varied selection of bubbles on offer for those who opt for the Champagne Afternoon Tea, from Polgoon Seyval Blanc, Cornwall, to Taittinger Prélude Grand Cru, Champagne, and Krug Grand Cuvee Brut, Champagne. For guests looking to make it a real celebration, there’s also an option to add free-flowing bubbles to the experience.

Says Chef Adam Handling: “I’ve always loved afternoon tea and I wanted to bring something special to Cornwall. There’s so much history and tradition deep-rooted in afternoon tea but we’re bringing something modern to it. For example, making sweet sculptures, instead of traditional cakes. I’ve created an award-winning afternoon tea before but I’m so excited about the offering at Ugly Butterfly, as it uses incredible produce from Cornwall to make a real sustainable, local, luxury afternoon tea experience.”

The Ugly Butterfly Afternoon Tea is available in the Ugly Butterfly bar from Tuesday – Sunday (12pm – 5pm) priced at £45pp, or £55pp for the Champagne Afternoon Tea, with an optional £50pp supplement for 90 minutes of free-flowing bubbles.