Villa Servais serves tea with history and culture Tested ™

Tea with a past

Behind the nineteenth-century façade of Villa Servais, Halle, lies a glorious history. Today, besides a private residence, a music hall, and a B&B, it also houses a cozy space for breakfast and afternoon tea. SCENIO tested that afternoon tea.

As if afternoon tea as a lure wasn't enough, it was still the cultural aspect that drew us to Villa Servais. Spread across the various rooms was a small exhibition featuring works by Brabant Fauvists, half of which had never been exhibited before, coming from private collections. Villa Servais regularly organizes such cultural moments, and it immediately sets the tone: here, afternoon tea is just as much an excursion into history and art as it is into scones and jam.A life's work

Villa Servais is a story in itself. The Neo-Palladian villa was built in 1847 for cellist and composer François Servais, designed by architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar, and was, at the time, the meeting place for musicians, poets, and artists in Halle. After a turbulent history, the building stood vacant from 1981 until Maud Leschevin and Geert De Poorter bought it in 2016 and made it their life's work. Five years of restoration later, the villa houses a private residence, a music hall, a B&B with eight guest rooms – and the tearoom where we sat down.

Forgotten Fauvists

The exhibition we found there brought together the work of the Brabant Fauvists (1906-1920), a generation also known as the 'Calevoeters'. Curator Peter Vanruysseveldt describes their style as follows: 'They applied colors in large areas, bright yet rarely harsh like their French colleagues, rather soft and harmonious.' The biggest name in the movement is Rik Wouters, but in Villa Servais, his work hung alongside two exceptional works by female artists. Their work hung side by side with that of their more famous partners.

Marthe Guillain (1890-1974), born in Charleroi, was married to artist Médard Maertens. Her work is included today in the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, among others. Remarkably little is documented about Yvonne Esser. After being his model and mistress, she later married Ferdinand Schirren. A significant part of the exhibited canvases came from private collections and had never been shown to the public before.

The afternoon tea, tested

This delightful British tradition dates back to 1840, roughly the period when Villa Servais was built. Anna Maria Russell, Duchess of Bedford and lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, is said to have introduced the custom when the increasingly late-served supper left a long, hungry gap between noon and dinner. In the late afternoon, she had tea, bread with butter, and cake brought to her room, soon invited friends to join her, and afternoon tea was born.

Villa Servais consciously reflects on this history, and on that of François Servais himself, with its tea selection: tea sommelier Ann Vansteenkiste of Curiosithee compiled an assortment with a nod to the cellist's many travels through the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Austria, and Japan.

The setting is immediately the strongest argument: a bright salon or, in good weather, the spacious garden terrace – possibly opened with a glass of Champagne Sandrin Villa Servais or a homemade Oude Geuze. The range of teas and coffees is wide.

The afternoon tea itself, as it should, has three layers. On the bottom level of the tiered stand, you find a trio of sandwiches (cucumber salad, salmon, egg salad), along with a filled lettuce leaf. In the middle are the 2 types of scones, a classic one and a fruit scone, which you generously spread with cream and jam. You finish, of course, with the top layer. Immediately the strongest part of the stand. The macarons, the mini-cheesecake, the mini-javanais, and the bokkenpootje (goat's paw cookie) were finger-licking good.

There was nothing wrong with the sandwiches either. They formed a delightfully fresh start to the meal. The scones, unfortunately, were a bit dry. Coincidence, or because they, or so it seemed, were cut into pieces from a larger pastry? The outer edges of that larger whole were baked harder than the middle pieces. Those who count on authentic clotted cream, surely the core of every British afternoon tea, will be somewhat disappointed: here you get whipped cream. Furthermore, the portions of cream and jam could be more generous; even after requesting more, they remained sparse.

Our conclusion: all in all, the afternoon tea at Villa Servais remains highly recommended.

Practical info

You can only reserve your table for afternoon tea on Sundays between 2 PM and 6 PM. Villa Servais works exclusively by reservation. On Saturdays, afternoon tea is available for groups of 25 people or more. The arrangement costs 35 euros per person, with the option of adding a glass of Champagne Sandrin Villa Servais or Oude Geuze.

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