Asha Gomez has garnered James Beard award nominations for her now-defunct Cardamom Hill restaurant and her 2016 book, “My Two Souths,” one of two books she has written. Now, the chef is taking her career in a new direction.
On Nov. 1, Gomez will open Tulip & Tea, a flower and tea shop located at 1805 Parker Road SE in the Corner Market shopping plaza in Conyers.
Besides specializing in floral arrangements and a custom line of loose teas, Tulip & Tea will offer high tea service on Fridays and Saturdays. The space also includes a kitchen studio, which will be used for classes in floral design and cooking.
Tulip & Tea has been a year in the making, but it’s been on Gomez’s wish list for much longer.
Credit: Paul McPherson Jr
Credit: Paul McPherson Jr
“I struggled tremendously in the food world,” said Gomez, whose restaurants Cardamom Hill and Spice to Table each had a three-year run. “It’s not sustainable from a financial perspective.”
Nerve damage in her right arm from kitchen work also signaled to the 53-year-old that it was time to “get out of cooking.”
She knew what she wanted: a tea and flower shop. But it was important to her to have a diversified business model that allowed for multiple income streams. “You can walk in and buy an entire kitchen by Zline,” she said. “I will be working with builders who need kitchen equipment.”
On the tea side, Gomez worked with Methodical Coffee, a roaster based in Greenville, South Carolina, and settled on a line of five teas, which are branded under the name House of Goretti (a reference to her middle name, which comes from Italian saint Maria Goretti). The teas include a mild white tea; an oolong tea that Gomez said is like drinking a white Burgundy; a floral chai; a highly fragrant jasmine tea; and an Earl Grey called Marquis, named for her father.
While the teas will be sold in the shop and online, they also form the foundation for high tea service, offered only Fridays and Saturdays. It will be an intimate affair, with two seatings — noon and 2:30 p.m. — serving parties of six. Tea service will cost $75 per person, not including a service charge and tax. Reservations must be made online and require pre-payment.
“As soon as you sit down, you get a madeleine with vanilla cream,” Gomez said, adding that “we will go through the tea list and find out what tea you’d like to have.” Then come savory finger foods, such as chicken salad and cucumber sandwiches and corn fritters. On the sweet side, there’ll be a fruit bowl drizzled with local honey, scones with malai (Indian-style clotted cream) and seasonal jam, a selection of cookies, a rotating “secret garden” dessert and Gomez’s signature three-spice carrot cake.
Gomez grew up watching her mother host high tea in the family home and seeks it out whenever she travels. She’s looking forward to putting her own mark on high tea service. “When we think of high tea in the U.S., it’s very Eurocentric,” she said, noting the use of tiered stands as an example. “A lot of cultures stop for high tea in the afternoon, and they are not (using) cake towers. I don’t plan to use cake towers.”
Also, she said, customers can expect to sit down to a “stunning” table setting that will, of course, include flowers.
For the floral aspect of her business, Gomez plans to focus on subscriptions — offering weekly and monthly arrangements. She also is focusing on the vessels that hold them. “People forget about the vase,” she said. “The flowers live for X amount of time, but the vases live on.”
Gomez said she has a “modern aesthetic” as a florist. She studied under multiple floral designers, including Sarah Ryhanen of sustainable flower farm Worlds End Farm in upstate New York and Kim Cheney of August Floral Design in Savannah.
“In the world of luxury, when it comes to floral style, there are not that many women that look like me,” said the native of India. “It is dominated by Caucasian women. I’m hoping we change that just a little bit.”
In addition, Gomez noted that the color white frequently is associated with high-end design aesthetics, but “I come from a world of color.”
Gomez’s love of color is plainly visible at Tulip & Tea. The walls are painted in olive green, with bold floral wallpapering over the kitchen area.
She hopes that Tulip & Tea’s location, 25 minutes east of Atlanta, attracts not just metro residents, but also customers from nearby Covington and Madison. “I imagined that if I designed something beautiful, they would come,” she said.
Tulip & Tea. 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, with high-tea by reservation only Friday-Saturday. 1805 Parker Road SE, Conyers. 770-284-9697, ashagomez.com
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