The Dining Room at Butchart Gardens

Amazing experience. We were there for their first night of Christmas dining and everything was impeccable. The service was so wonderful and friendly, and the atmosphere was super inviting and cozy. We all had different menu items and from the appetizers to dessert, the food was too notch and extremely inventive and delicious. Thanks so much for making our holiday season so special Butchart Gardens. We had a fantastic evening!

We went to the dining room for their tea. Wow! Great variety of teas available and delightful. Trifle, savouries and sweets. Even a classic scone with fruit preserves and Devonshire cream. I was with my daughter, Leanne, and we were surrounded by orchids, poinsettias and other amazing plants. It was bright and decorated out our window. What an amazing setting. But most of all, our servers was so attentive and delightfully pert and friendly.

Adorably divine! Blessed with such a beautiful afternoon, the gardens were lovely and in full bloom with the sun shining! Even if it were raining this would be the perfect place to take refuge and bask in the greenery. They went above and beyond to ensure my nuisance of a list of allergies were attended to and still a tasty delight!

We had the afternoon tea last week. Taste was good, especially the sausage rolls and mini sandwiches. But the sweets were too sweet for me. The service was good. The view from the restaurant was beautiful. What I didn’t like is the price - $42.5 per person. In terms of the quantity of the food, it’s too expensive. (i was still hungry)

My son and I visited the dining room for afternoon tea and I would not recommend it to anyone who is not already planning a trip to the garden. The setting is lovely and afternoon tea is always a favourite experience of mine but two major points thwarted our overall enjoyment. First of all, the primary goal is to get the tea right since it’s what the dining experience is named for. I chose the 100th anniversary tea which was recommended and I did not like it, the server never checked in to ask if I was enjoying my tea. Isn’t that the first thing the server should do? Secondly, admission to the gardens is an exorbitant $35 (a lot for looking at flowers) but we were not there to look at the garden- we were there for tea. However we still had to pay admission and then also had to pay for our tea service $42. In my opinion it would be as simple as looking up our reservation at the gate and charging us a reduced entrance fee: All of this would have probably been forgiven if we had loved the food but we didn’t. Capers in the smoked salmon, alfalfa in the egg salad, alfalfa and bell peppers in the ham sandwich and the egg and ham sandwiches are in the kids tea. What child says, “could you please serve my ham sandwich with alfalfa in it?” I didn’t even like it- let alone my eight year old! Also the scones have ginger in them. It was light enough not to bother me but I had to pick it out for my son. Overall this tea is too expensive, they are trying to be too fancy which just gets in the way instead of enhancing the meal and they are not delivering well enough on the basics. To be clear, children’s admission is only $3 and their tea is just under $30 but still not cheap enough to make me happy with our visit to the dining room. If you like weird tea sandwiches and fake fancy, then go here for tea, otherwise stick to the empress where they charge a lot for five star service but it really is five star.