Pinkies Up
By Lisa Arnett
November 2025 View more Discover
Three places to enjoy a relaxing afternoon tea
Oak + Rose Tea Room
1 W. State St., Suite 107, Geneva
This riverside tearoom in downtown Geneva is named for Oakley and Melrose, the Chicago streets where owner Vanessa Shepherd’s grandparents lived when she was growing up. “My grandmas and my mom were the ultimate hostesses, and growing up we would have these special traditions of getting dressed up for family occasions,” she says. “I wanted to capture that tradition and make a place that allows for other families to do the same thing.”
Her path to open the tearoom actually began with a baking class in Chicago. After working in higher education for more than 15 years and then stepping away to raise her daughter, Shepherd fell in love with the art of making French macarons. She started her own business, Vie Sucre, and when her family relocated to Geneva, she started selling her French pastries at west suburban farmers’ markets and hosting afternoon tea pop-ups at local event spaces. In February 2024, she fell in love with a space at the Geneva on the Dam complex in downtown Geneva. It took almost a year and help from her whole family to renovate the space in time to open in time for holiday tea last December. “We have windows around the entire room with a beautiful view of the Fox River,” she says. “It really has those European vibes with a brick courtyard, and even in the cold days of January and February it still feels happy and cozy in here.”
A two-hour afternoon tea experience ($62 per adult, $40 for children) is offered Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and reservations are required. “Our teas come from a French-Canadian tea company that only distributes to tearooms, so these teas are really special,” Shepherd says. “Each guest receives their own pot of tea as well as scones and biscuits, finger sandwiches, and miniature desserts. Menus change seasonally; the fall menu includes curried chicken salad with cranberries, Gruyère grilled cheese with bechamel and tomato-basil soup, apple cider scones with clotted cream, and lavender and Earl Grey tea cakes. “For kiddos, we have an option with cookie butter and jelly or turkey and cheese sandwiches,” she says. “And we have hot chocolate and lemonade and juice for kids who might not be tea drinkers quite yet.” Sparkling wine and other adult beverages are available à la carte.
The recommended attire is dressy casual, and Shepherd loves seeing diners dressed to the nines. “You don’t need a special occasion to come, but it is special to be here for a few hours and enjoy as many teas as you would like,” she says. “In this area, there are not many places that you can wear your cutest outfit in the daytime and then be back in your sweatpants by 6. It is the ultimate daytime hang.” For the holiday season, Shepherd plans to expand reservations to include Thursdays. “We really make it a winter wonderland in here,” she says. “I want it to feel like you’re inside a beautiful snow globe. We will have Christmas trees, of course, and every kid who comes gets to pick an ornament from the tree to take home.”
Good to know: Hosting private events, especially wedding and baby showers, is Shepherd’s specialty. “I really try to make it so whomever is hosting can literally show up with nothing, and it’s already super well-appointed and super glam,” she says. “We do printed menus for each event, and you can customize what you want your guests to have, and it’s a lot of fun.”
Lucille at Drury Lane Theatre
100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace
With majestic arched mirrors and massive crystal chandeliers, Lucille delivers all the drama you’d expect from a restaurant inside the lobby of a theater. “We want to draw people in to show them an extraordinary experience, whether it be on the stage or at their table,” says Carolyn Bakker, director of food and beverage. “Lucille is an American brasserie restaurant, but it changes with every show and season and it’s always telling a story.”
Afternoon tea takes place on Saturdays, with reservations starting at 1 p.m. ($65 for adults and $30 for children 12 and under). The three-course experience starts with your choice of teas sourced by Bakker from local purveyors such as Chicago’s Rare Tea Cellar. “We have a great list, and your server will guide you through, from botanical options to black teas to ones that are guest favorites.”
Teapots arrive alongside scones served with lemon curd, fruit preserves, and clotted cream. After that comes a variety of tea sandwiches and desserts. “Afternoon tea includes free-flowing Champagne as well, and we do have an amazing sparkling spirit-free offering as well that’s crisp and delicious,” she says.
November’s autumnal Tea Leaves menu features maple scones with clotted cream, cinnamon butter, and apple jam as well as tea sandwich fillings such as roasted sweet potato with goat cheese and sage. Sweets planned for the occasion include pumpkin-dark chocolate financiers, cinnamon-plum rooibos sponge cake, and chai custard.
Bakker and her team pull out all the stops for holiday tea in December ($35 for children, $75 for adults). “Everything is ornate and decorated beautifully,” she says. “We make it very glamorous, but we make it as kid-friendly as possible, too, so people can feel comfortable bringing their kids and introducing them to an afternoon tea.” Depending on the day, afternoon tea might include live music—harp, violin, or cello—or activities for children such as story time or a friendship bracelet-making station.
Good to know: In 2026, Lucille will offer a whimsical Alice in Wonderland tea starting in March. “In the summer, we are doing a tour of picnics; one week it will be France, another week it’ll be the Amalfi Coast,” Bakker says. “And we will be doing a spooky tea in October.”
Pinecone Cottage Tea House
1029 Burlington Ave., Downers Grove
Chef Pamela Geralds has been serving afternoon tea in downtown Downers Grove for 24 years, but her business took root a decade earlier. “My husband and I grow a huge garden, and it all started with us selling vegetables at the end of our driveway,” she says. “I started baking and cooking and doing some catering. People started asking me to host [wedding and baby] showers in my house, and it just turned into a thing.”
Pinecone Cottage is actually Geralds’s nickname for her home. “We live in an old golf cottage across the street from the Downers Grove golf course,” she says. (Ironically, she later discovered the trees surrounding her home that inspired the name were actually spruce, not pine; though arborists may quibble, she stuck with the original name.) “People liked the feeling of our old house, so we tried to bring as many elements of that into this space as we could,” Geralds says. Think antique furniture, seasonally inspired table linens, and china covered in romantic florals.
On the weekends, Geralds’s three-course afternoon tea is reservations-only and for diners 13 years and older. “We are very different than a hotel-style tea that is very structured,” Geralds says. “What I’m trying to do here is something just a little bit different—to weave in the produce that we grow and cuisines from all over the world.” She releases a new themed menu almost every month, and most are inspired by places she has traveled during the previous year.
Earlier this fall, for example, Geralds’s three-course menu was Tucson Afternoon Tea: A Taste of the Sonoran Desert ($57) featuring mango-pineapple and watermelon-mint teas alongside chicken mole amarillo salad, tomato-basil-summer squash tortilla bites, and lemon tres leches cake. The November menu features Asian fusion small plates inspired by the cookbook Afternoon Tea Is the New Happy Hour by Gail Greco, and December’s menu is Taste of Bordeau, an ode to southwestern France.
“With the exception of maybe two kinds of bread, we make everything here from scratch—the jams, the scones—and we use a lot of herbs from my garden,” she says. If the featured teas on the menu don’t appeal, diners can choose from more than 30 other loose teas, or BYO wine or beer. Geralds also accommodates preferences for gluten-free, vegetarian, or vegan diners.
Good to know: On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, walk-ins are accepted, and diners can choose either the three-course menu or order dishes à la carte. Kids are welcome on weekdays and for $18 can enjoy a children’s tea service with hot chocolate, a scone with jam and cream, four tea sandwiches, and a cupcake.
Photos: Karen Muehlfelt, Keeping Moments Photography (Oak + Rose); Jill Tiongco Photography (Lucille); Catherine Wagner/Pamela Geralds (Pinecone Cottage)
