MarketGunter's Tea Shop
Company Profile

Gunter's Tea Shop

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 popular culture
In Georgette Heyer's Regency Romance novels, Gunter's were mentioned frequently as the suppliers of refreshments and wines to the main characters' households. Mary Elizabeth Braddon eulogised Gunter's in chapter III of her 1863 novel Aurora Floyd. In Mary Seacole's autobiography she states that even Gunter would have envied her reputation for the sponge cakes that she provided for the British army besieging Sebastopol in the Crimean War. Gunter's is the eponymous meeting place in Pamela Haines' 1974 novel 'Tea at Gunter's'. The shop is also the setting for a brief scene in Bernard Cornwell's novel Gallows Thief, taking place in 1817. The cafe appears to be referenced in Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair, in the 2-shilling expense line item that the private eye Parkis submits to Bendrix. “The coffee place was more expensive than I cared for,” Parkis explains, “but it was the least I could take without drawing attention.” In Patrick O'Brian's The Letter of Marque, Gunter's staff were hired for a private dinner party by Sir Joseph Blaine, head of British intelligence, who was particularly keen to impress his guests. In the first episode of the television series The House of Eliott, the protagonists -- two sisters who, in 1920, have lost their seemingly affluent father and whose solicitor has told them that they'll be comfortably off -- have tea at Gunter's. ==References==
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