195 Water Street
Ph. 739-4766
An alluring sign hangs above the entrance to The Gypsy Tea
Room. It shows a dark and beautiful dancing gypsy in long, flowing dress. She
seems to be flirting with someone unseen. Perhaps that someone is all of us.
That’s the intention of a commercial advertisement isn’t it, to attract
attention in some way and create custom? Of course, the effectiveness of such a
sign is all in the rendering of the lady dancer and this is no ordinary
signboard. The image on The Gypsy Tea Room’s is a charming homage to a famous
painting called, El Jaleo, by John Singer Sargent. The restaurant’s
interpretation of Sargent’s creation is not the work of a “sign” painter. The
Gypsy Tea Room’s owner, Emir Mahic, is a friend of one of
Despite the enticing sign it was just recently that I felt I could dine comfortably at The Gypsy Tea Room. Before the smoking ban, it was quite likely that your table space would be enveloped in clouds of smelly, dense cigarette smoke. That’s because The Gypsy Tea Room is a popular bar as well as restaurant. Thankfully, that era is over and the restaurant - like all bars and restaurants - is now a smoke-free dining space.
Overall, its atmosphere is cool and dark. A long bar on the east wall has the worn look of some serious drinking. Picture a young Ernest Hemingway with a daiquiri in his hand holding up one end and you might get a sense of the ambience of the place. There’s masculinity about it - earthy tones, deeply stained wood, some brick and very few decorative flourishes. One concession is a curious Cirque du Soleil poster hanging next to the cash end of the bar. It appears to contain troupe signatures - along with good wishes to Emir Mahic on his restaurant venture.
I made two visits to The Gypsy Tea Room. My first was a luncheon date with my friend Andrea. She was in a soup and salad mood and chose a roasted red pepper and shrimp bisque with Mediterranean salad. The bisque looked smooth and rich but what really caught my eye was the inclusion of 3 or 4 whole shrimp. It’s rare to see whole pieces of seafood in a shrimp or lobster bisque in St. John’s restaurants. Not surprising, Andrea enjoyed her soup very much, as well as the salad, which contained cucumber, olives, peppers, red onions and feta.
Speaking of feta, our basket of bread came with the usual Gypsy Tea Room condiment, a mingling of extra virgin olive oil and dark balsamic vinegar on a plate. This liaison was punctuated with a few kalamata olives and, more unusually, several knobs of feta cheese. It helped tamp down my hunger pangs as I waited for my appetizer, watermelon gazpacho. Frankly, the gazpacho did nothing for me. I was expecting a refreshing cold soup dominated by the crisp, sweet, summery taste of fresh watermelon. What I received was a perfunctory liquid salad of chopped canned tomato, sweet peppers, onion, and etcetera, stirred together with what tasted like a small amount of liquidized watermelon. It reminded me of something an unimaginative vegetarian might throw together in a hurry for basic nourishment.
Things did not improve with my entrée. As with the gazpacho my main course was one of the daily specials, a seared piece of pork loin served with mashed potato. The pork was dry, overcooked and lacking flavour. And the mashed potato was tired, unappetizing cafeteria fare.
I made my second visit to The Gypsy Tea Room with my “foodie” friend, Debbie Youden. We began at the bar. I challenged the restaurant’s gregarious bartender to create a summer cocktail for us. What he came up with was an icy combo of raspberry flavoured Stoli vodka, Malibu rum, pineapple, cranberry and orange juice. We both enjoyed the Caribbean inspired blend of fruit and rummy flavours. It was a challenge well met.
With our window table ready, Debbie and I sat in to enjoy appetizers of Hungarian mushroom soup and vegetarian spring rolls. Both were quite flavourful, especially the spring rolls that benefited from hot spices and a standard preparation of sweet chili sauce. The soup, which appeared to be a combination of chopped portabella and white button mushrooms in a cream enriched chicken stock, would have been even better, Debbie and I thought, with a generous pinch of fresh thyme.
Both our entrées represented St. John’s dining at its finest. Debbie’s fillet of halibut, supported by a ring of ocean scallops, shrimp, mussels and lobster claw was a superb preparation, especially the halibut. Rarely have I tasted halibut so fresh and expertly cooked. As I allowed the delicate halibut to satisfy my appreciate palate I found it hard to believe that this Neptune worthy food had been produced by the same restaurant that also produced the unfortunate, forgettable pork dish of my earlier visit. I suspect an uneven talent pool in The Gypsy Tea Room’s kitchen.
My roasted lamb chops with balsamic reduction were excellent. They were thick - always important when roasting - darkened by a jeweled surface of caramelization and released a generous amount of flavour-rich juice from their tender textured meat.
I washed down the tasty lamb with a glass of 2001 Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Shiraz. Debbie paired her mushroom soup and halibut with the Italian red, Masi Valpolicella. Both of us were impressed by The Gypsy Tea Room’s wine list. It was weak in its selection of fuller white wines but otherwise offered good variety. Italian Folonari house wines were featured, a pleasant pinot grigio and moderately robust merlot.
Freshly made desserts at The Gypsy Tea Room were limited to various versions of ubiquitous cheesecake. For me, cheesecake has become the culinary equivalent of a Barry Manilow song, saccharine sweet, colourfully packaged, initially appealing, but, ultimately, sledgehammer subtle and unsatisfying. Despite my reservations we tried two of The Gypsy Tea Room’s cheesecakes, mixed berry and chocolate.
The mixed berry was a New York style cheesecake topped with what tasted to me like syrupy reconstituted dried cherries and studded with a few cultivated blueberries. A drizzle of ginger and saffron sauce bordered the plate. Altogether, this dessert was a discordant hash. Excepting the blueberry embedded portion of the filling, none of the various elements worked well together.
As a chocolate lover I appreciated the combination of milk and dark chocolate in the second cake, as well as the garnish of mango with mint salsa. I even enjoyed the ginger and saffron sauce - that worked much better with chocolate. However, an additional garnish of finely diced red and yellow, pickled bell peppers detracted from my enjoyment of the dish and made no sense to me.
My second visit to The Gypsy Tea Room was significantly more enjoyable than the first. The latter had far more wins than misses. I liked the fact that Emir Mahic is willing to experiment with different combinations of ingredients and flavours. When the approach worked, it worked very well and for my money, it’s more fun to experience the originality of a skilled chef like Emir Mahic than the garden-variety cuisine of a mediocre cook.
Dinner for two at The Gypsy Tea Room, including cocktails, two glasses of wine and tip, cost approximately $150.00.
Best Points:
Very good seafood.
Areas for Improvement:
Make sure all your cooks know how to prepare the entire menu properly.
Ratings Category:
The Gypsy Tea Room gets 8 points out of 10.