Art-Inspired Delicacies: Art Afternoon Tea at The Merrion Dublin

In my new handbook about seeing art while traveling, I mentioned that I look for art-related experiences that I could only possibly get in my destination. Well, the Merrion Dublin’s Art Afternoon Tea definitely fits that bill, since it includes both a private art collection and custom pastries inspired by it. Where else can you get that? Best of all, you don’t have to stay at this elegant hotel to participate.

The Merrion

Inside the Georgian Sitting Room at the Merrion Dublin. Photo by a Scholarly Skater.

The Merrion is a small historic hotel in Dublin, Ireland. It resides in a quartet of 18th-century Georgian-style townhouses that were restored and converted into a hotel in 1997. (You can read about the buildings, including their surprisingly strong connections to major events in Irish history, here.) Within its elegant, tasteful interior is a major art collection cultivated by the owner; it’s primarily made up of 19th and 20th-century Irish art.

The afternoon tea lets you look at this private art collection while you have your tea and then offers you designer pastries inspired by some of the artworks around you. It also gives you a free collection catalog and lets you browse the hotel’s extensive holdings of Irish art.

The Tea

The Art Afternoon Tea is a two-hour, two-course affair that takes place in the art-filled Georgian drawing room. The first course includes tea (there’s a whole menu of teas to choose from), small sandwiches, and tea cakes. You can also have champagne for an extra charge. Two of the cakes are inspired by a Sean Scully painting from the collection. All this food is really delicious, but pace yourself so you have some appetite left for what’s coming next. While you drink your tea, you can browse the complementary art collection catalog provided, which you can take home afterwards if you like.

The second course is where things really get interesting. It includes a trio of elaborate and inventive pastries designed by the Merrion’s pastry chef Paul Kelly based on three specific works in the collection. Different works are selected for inclusion every month. While they may not actually be visible from your tea table, they’ll be on display somewhere nearby; the staff can direct you to them if necessary. Small photographic reproductions sit on your table so you can compare the pastries to their inspirations.

My tea included pastries inspired by William Gillard’s Fruit and Game, Patrick Hennessy’s Roses and Temple, and Orla Whelen’s 2019 sculpture Chaos Bewitched. (Whelen was the recipient of the hotel’s first-ever Merrion Plinth Award for contemporary artists.) In all cases, I was really impressed by the creativity involved in designing the pastries, which draw from the art without being too literal about it. It’s not all about the visuals, either. The Roses and Temple pastry contained rose water, which you can’t see but could definitely taste. I also liked the fact that each pastry referenced the art in a different way. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that a different chef was responsible for each one.

The pastries are small but filling. If you make the mistake I did and fill up too much during the first course, you can get any remaining pastries and tea cakes wrapped up to go in an adorable little box, but unfortunately, the pastries don’t keep super well. (The cakes survived better.) With the second course, you can have more tea, coffee, or hot chocolate with marshmallows.

The Art

Clockwise from top left: Enrico Braga, Woman in a Headscarf, 1873.* William Scott, Frying Pan, Funnel, Eggs & Lemon, 1950. Roderic O’Conor, Breton Girl, 1902.* Jack B. Yeats, Definace, 1950. Sean Scully, Vertical Stripes. Sir John Lavery, Portrait of a Lady, 1900.* Sir John Lavery, Portrait of Eileen Lavery. All from the collection of the Merrion, Dublin and all photos by A Scholarly Skater. *Artworks with an asterisk mean the attribution is my best guess.

After you’re done with tea, you can walk around and look at the art throughout the hotel. In addition to the collection catalog, there is also an audio guide. However, not every work on display is illustrated in the book, and I didn’t actually get to see every work mentioned in the catalog. That’s because the hotel has some kind of exchange program with the National Galleries of Ireland and Scotland. I get the sense that the selection and arrangement of works on view are always changing. Much of the art is displayed in public spaces of the hotel, like the lobby and restaurants, but I’m not sure if you’re allowed to just walk in off the street to see it.

Although many different styles and periods are represented, the majority of the art is very modern, colorful, and even abstract. It makes for very cool juxtapositions with the pale, restrained, traditional interiors. Some of the artists represented include Jack B. Yeats, Sir John Lavery, and Nathaniel Hone, big names in Irish art whose works you can also see at the nearby National Gallery. I was pleased by how many female artists are included. I especially enjoyed paintings by Mainie Jellett and Saurin Elizabeth Leech.

The Experience

I had never been to afternoon tea before, so I really didn’t know what to expect. I actually felt a little intimidated, but in retrospect, I don’t think I needed to be. The whole experience was elegant, classy, and leisurely. The waiters were really wonderful; I could tell that they’re used to gently directing newbies through the experience, since ours always knew exactly when to stop and suggest that he take a photo for us. I made sure to wear a nice dress and use my best manners, but the group at the next table was much more casually dressed. All the food was really excellent.

Art Afternoon Tea at The Merrion costs €62.50 per person without any champagne and €82.50 per person with a glass of champagne. There are four sitting times each afternoon, and you will need to book in advance, especially if you want to go on the weekend. The hotel is located on Upper Merrion Street in Dublin, not far from Saint Stephen’s Green, the National Gallery of Art, the National Library, and the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology.

Postscript: Georgian Architecture

Georgian architecture, a style that’s abundant in Dublin, is an elegant and restrained form of classical Greek-inspired architecture. It was current in England and its colonies in the 18th and early-19th centuries and was the fashionable building style during the so-called “Golden Age” of Dublin in the second half of the 18th century, when the city saw a period of major construction and urbanization. You can also see Georgian and its close cousin, the Federal style, in the Revolution-era buildings in the United States. It got its name from a series of King Georges of England who reigned in the 18th and early-19th centuries.

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