Blogfinger

Pat Betty serving up a spot of tea. Photo by Mary Walton

By Mary Walton

Sometimes Pat Betty wakes up in the middle of the night with an inspiration.

Apple and Mascarpone on tea crackers. Mozzarella and cucumbers. Peach bread pudding.

In short order her inspiration materializes on the handwritten menu of the Tranquil Garden Tea Room, at 62A Main Avenue.

You may know the place as a dark basement filled with antiques and bric-a-brac.  That’s so yesterday.

Today it’s a bright, freshly painted and thoroughly refurbished space filled with tables.  In the rear is a kitchen area where Betty turns out scones, tea sandwiches, salads and desserts accompanied by a variety of brewed teas.

Betty, a dimpled, brown-eyed woman with a merry laugh, was born in Jamaica, a former British colony.  She fell in love with cooking during a culinary course in school.  By the age of 12, she had mastered Yorkshire pudding and other British dishes.  For the next several decades, cooking remained largely a hobby, as she moved to New York and pursued a career in holistic health.

Some 15 years ago she discovered the Jersey Shore and became a regular visitor, working her way down from Long Branch to Asbury Park.  On a weekend visit there, she stayed in a supposedly non-smoking room that was permeated with the odor of cigarettes, likely from maids who smoked.  She fled to Ocean Grove for the rest of her stay.  She still remembers the first time she saw the Grove’s picturesque main street at night, its trees wrapped in sparkling lights.   “I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh.  I’ve come to Brigadoon.’ ”  In 2002 she rented an apartment in the Grove and commuted to her job in New York for four years.

Commuting got old. After deciding to make a career change that would allow her to pursue her love of food, she opened a produce shop in Asbury Park. She also planted a garden, and taught neighborhood children to raise vegetables.  But the business lost money.

Betty had once worked in a tearoom and enjoyed it.  So when the Main Avenue space became available, she decided to go for it. Tranquil Garden, which opened in October, “is not a Victorian tearoom,” she says emphatically. “Not fusty and stuffy and the same thing over and over again.” It’s “more global.” Nor is it hung with lace curtains and strewn with other manifestations of Victoriana. Instead, reflecting her love of horticulture, plants—both real and painted—are the preferred decoration.

The full four-course tea costs $15, but customers can order a la carte. Betty also sells unusual teas from New York’s Little India along with exotic jams and her homemade pastries.

Last week she launched a book club that will meet at 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of every month beginning in February, and she is thinking about offering bridge.  Betty is still adjusting the winter schedule. For now, the doors are open 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Friday through Sunday.