DECEMBER 16, 1987
High tea has come to North Dakota, and it is doing very well, thank you.
On the second Monday of each month, between the hours of three and five o’clock, David’s Restaurant at Logan and Third Streets in Bismarck holds high tea. Seventy-five to 100 women (and a sprinkling of men) from central North Dakota show up.
They pay $5.25.
In Bismarck’s version of the English high tea, guests are welcomed with Concord red grape or cranberry juice in dainty aperitif glasses. They are seated at tables with white crocheted doilies beneath the glass covers. At each table, there are individual tea pots. Many of them are English bone china.
Since Lupe Barbere—who operates the restaurant with her husband, David Barbere—is a tea drinker, she brews the tea herself. She uses tea balls and only English teas, and she is enthusiastic about the response to the teas, which she has been holding for six months.
“It’s time-consuming to make the foods,” said Barbere, “but we are getting it down to science now. We serve thinly sliced cucumber and egg slices on little open-face sandwiches. We serve them with English butter with herbs mixed in as spreads. We also have chicken pâté and ham spreads on tiny sandwiches. Last month, we had asparagus spears sliced diagonally on sandwiches. We bake our own scones and serve them with clotted cream and jam. Then we make bars, pinwheels and cookies. And,” she continued, “it isn’t really English, but we make krumkake and rosettes. The Norwegian people around here like that.”
The restaurant makes sure there are slices of lemon on each table. Four girls in pink pinafores do the serving, and they come around with hot water to add to the tea for those who think it seems too strong.
As high tea progresses, there is usually informal modeling of fashions by one of the Bismarck stores. In December, there was a presentation by Anderson’s State Fur. There is piano music in the background.
The teas not only add a touch of glamor to a late afternoon in Bismarck, but they also bring in business at a time of day when the restaurant isn’t busy. Lupe Barbere herself has never been to high tea in England, but she knows all about it from reading. And she has had high tea at hotels in San Francisco.
“There,” she said, “many guests have brandies with tea. Not many order brandy here in Bismarck. This is a more conservative area.”
David’s is no longer is business.