Best Cream Tea in Moretonhampstead

Central Stores Café, situated at the heart of Moretonhampstead offers the best cream tea in Devon. This stylish, chic café offers a warm welcome to locals and visitors alike, from 7.30 in the morning until 5 at night. Jill and Larry Kuiper took over the café in early 2010 and have kept much of the original menu, with a few welcome additions. Bacon and sausages for the sizzling full English breakfasts are now locally sourced, and much of the food is home cooked.

 Moretonhampstead, which dates back to the 1200s is a typical Devon market town, with many attractive features.  It is dubbed “The Gateway to The High Moor” as it is the access point to some of England’s finest wilderness, the high peaks of Dartmoor National Park.  Central café is the ideal place to stoke up with a hearty breakfast before spending the day hiking, or for treating yourself to a Cream Tea after a long day on the trail. 

A Devon cream tea traditionally comprises two plain scones, with homemade strawberry jam, thick clotted cream and a pot of tea and the Dartmoor Tea Rooms on the Exeter Road, Moretonhampstead stock a wide variety of speciality teas to choose from, but their ordinary 'house tea' works well.

The cafe is small and cosy, decorated in a Bistro style and prides itself on quality, home cooked foods. There are food related gifts for sale, so you could find yourself taking a luxury teapot away with you.

The first time overseas visitors order clotted cream, many of them are surprised by its appearance. A good quality clotted cream should be pale yellow in colour, have the consistency of soft ice cream and should have a thick, yellowish crust on the surface. Full fat milk is heated very slowly until it thickens, forms a ridge around the edge of its container and just begins to bubble, then the clotted cream is skimmed from the milk and cooled. In the West Country (Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset) this cream was traditionally eaten on bread instead of butter, so you shouldn’t expect butter with your Devon cream tea.

The Gateway Tearoom, situated in the market square in Moretonhampstead has the feel of a traditional tea room, with tablecloths and chintzy curtains. Expect homemade cakes and a warm welcome as you sit and watch the world go by.

The world may also be watching you, so the best way to eat a cream tea, to avoid getting in a sticky mess is to split each scone in half horizontally and spread with jam, before adding the cream on top. If you try it the other way round, cream first, the jam won’t stick to the cream and you tend to get in a pickle. In polite English society, after splitting the scone, one would cut a mouthful; add jam and cream one piece at a time.

 A Devon cream tea is traditionally eaten in the afternoon, but why not be really decadent, visit Central Stores in the morning and have it for breakfast, then you can walk off all those calories!