Gunter's Tea Shop

{{Short description|Tea shop in London, United Kingdom}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}}

{{Use British English|date=January 2014}}

Gunter's Tea Shop was an establishment in London's Berkeley Square. It had its origins in a food business named "Pot and Pine Apple" started in 1757 by Italian Domenico Negri. Various English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats were made and sold from the business. In 1777, James Gunter became Negri's business partner, and by 1799 he was the sole proprietor.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets.{{cite web |url=http://www.georgianindex.net/Gunters/gunters.html |date=March 2003 |title=Berkeley Square |work=The Georgian Index |accessdate=23 November 2007 |archive-date=30 November 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071130001330/http://www.georgianindex.net/Gunters/gunters.html |url-status=dead }} In 1815, James sent his son Robert (1783–1852) to study the confectionery trade in Paris. Robert assumed sole control of the business following his father's death in 1819, and took on his cousin John as a partner in 1837.{{cite book |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |last=Pennell |first=S. M. |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |chapter=Gunter, James (1731–1819) |edition=Online }}

Along with Bolland's of Chester and W G Buszard, Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales.The Graphic Royal Wedding issue 2 August 1889

The policewoman Barbara Bell describes Gunter's in the 1930s as a place where she could pick up wealthy lesbian women for affairs, saying, "I never did, but I had plenty of opportunity. The little waitress would come over and say, 'The lady over there- would you like to join her for tea at her table?'"{{Cite book |last=Jennings |first=Rebecca |title=A Lesbian History of Britain |publisher=Greenwood World Publishing |year=2007 |isbn=9781846450075 |location=Oxford |pages=134}}

Gunter's was located at Nos. 7–8 Berkeley Square. When the east side of the square was demolished in 1936–7, it moved to Curzon Street. The tea shop closed in 1956, although the catering business continued for another twenty years.{{cite book |title=The London Encyclopaedia |edition=3rd |chapter=Gunter's Tea Shop |first1=Ben |last1=Weinreb |authorlink1 = Ben Weinreb|first2=Christopher |last2=Hibbert |authorlink2 = Christopher Hibbert|first3=Julia |last3=Keay |first4=John |last4=Keay|authorlink4 = John Keay|year=2008 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=9781405049245 |page=365|title-link=The London Encyclopaedia }}