Date visited: Thursday 16th May 2024
The Rabbit Hole, at 55 School Green Road in Freshwater, is the tiniest of tea rooms, with just two tables inside and one table outside. The proprietors, Nick and Gail Creagh-Osborne, operate both the tea room and Mrs Middleton’s Shop three doors down the road, which is a bookshop selling second hand and antiquarian books. Books are also very much in evidence – and for sale – at The Rabbit Hole. Mrs Middleton’s Shop opened for business in 2015. The Rabbit Hole started as a patisserie and chocolate shop in 2020 and has since evolved into a tearoom and chocolate shop.
As one might expect for a tiny tea room, the menu is not the most extensive. On offer when I visited were three different cakes and eight teas. The only menu on display, on a mirror near the entrance door, is just a decoration! To make my choice of tea, the teas were brought out, each in a container marked with their brewing time and temperature. I chose a slice of chocolate torte with biscoff base, and a pot of jasmine silver tip tea, brewed for 2 minutes at 70 degrees Celsius, with timer provided. As my visit was on a rainy Thursday lunchtime when both indoor tables were already occupied, I shared a table with two of the other customers who, despite being professionals in the beverages industry, were suitably impressed with the detail attended to the serving of the tea. The proprietor was dividing his time between the tea room and the bookshop, but whilst in the tea room indulged his customers in conversation, especially if they expressed an interest in the books for sale. I was pleased to see that several books on tea were available.
Both the chocolate torte and the tea were of the finest quality and quite reasonably priced at £6.15 and the experience was most convivial.
At the time of visiting in the spring of 2024, The Rabbit Hole was open on just Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Bank Holiday Mondays, from 10 am to 5 pm.
