Andrew's tour of Scotland A very British sin

Date Published:

14/07/2008

Kitty's in New Galloway is a traditional tea room - the total antithesis to the grab-and-go urban coffee culture

This is something British, this is tea, we invented this (yes, I know we didn’t invent tea itself, but we invented tea rooms surely?!). You walk into Kitty's and feel, well... polite. Squint, and you could be on the set of an Agatha Christie adaptation, where Miss Marple confides in a friend that she’s about to unmask the murderer.

Perfect for a pit stop

That illusion is shattered after a little chat with Sylvia Brown, the owner: "We get all sorts of customers; we get a lot of bikers." "Aye," says sister Isobel, "in all their leathers and such. "Sadly, on a Wednesday afternoon it's day trippers and pensioners, but the thought of a group of chunky leather clad road warriors stopping off for a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake warms the heart. The A82 winds alongside lochs and up over mountains, and it's no wonder bikers as well as everyone else take a short detour into New Galloway for a pit stop.

Sylvia talks me through the history. "It was a private house in 1840 and the ceiling came from a ship that was broken up. It took local carpenters a year to fix it in place." Later on it became a temperance hotel, had a short spell as a green grocers, before becoming Kitty's just under 20 years ago.

The cups, plates and saucers are all original, some bought, but many often donated by customers. Sylvia informs me that there’s one set there that’s rumoured to have belonged to the late Queen Mother.

Sylvia does all the cooking in the back, leaving her daughter Julie and sister Isobel to handle the front of house. Says Sylvia: "I make everything here, all the mains, light bites and cakes. The only thing I don't make is the Victoria sponge."

Sophie's sin

Particularly popular are high teas, from 4-7pm. I, however, opt for a cup of tea and a cake as it’s only just after two - and one must maintain a sense of propriety. There's English breakfast tea on there, as well as Earl and Lady Grey, but I opt for the Scottish blend. I like the kind of tea you can varnish a fence with, and the Scottish is a much stronger blend. Cake wise I opt for Sophie's Sin, described as a rich chocolate sponge soaked in amoretti liqueur and filled with chocolate granache and cream. It's delicious, and just what I need. I don't know who Sophie was, and Sylvia's dashed off back to her kitchen, but I'm glad she sinned and her transgressions were immortalised in the medium of cake.

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