Coffee & Treats in Tulsa

The Belvidere Tea Room serves light lunch fare and pots of fine tea Tuesday–Saturday on the first floor of a 9,000-square-foot Belvidere mansion. Built in the early 1900s, the castle-like Victorian home still evokes the grandeur of its past with period furniture, pressed-tin walls, and original woodwork and trim brought from the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Complimentary tours offer guests a glimpse into the mansion's many chambers, including a grand ballroom adorned with gold chandeliers.

Frosted Tops' miniature cakes are an art form—a delicious fusion of creative flavors and eye-catching designs. Mini, regular, and jumbo-size cupcakes appeal to all appetites, their buttercream frostings mixing with seasonal and everyday flavors. Cupcake shots come with a small shot cup in the center, allowing pairings of beverages with each cake, such as milk with Oreo cupcakes and Bailey’s with chocolate-espresso cake. Cupcake bouquets bloom with rose-like toppings of frosting, reminiscent of flowers not only in their appearance but in their fleeting nature and ability to attract swarms of bees. The bakers also mix up batches of whoopie pies and cake pops and can ship or deliver their divine desserts.

Waves of warmth ripple out from the oven, softening pale whorls of cream-cheese frosting and curlicues of caramel syrup. Sheila, the baker, bustles among miniature confections, sprinkling fistfuls of oreo crumbs, pressing candied pecans into frosting, and making sure that the cupcakes are not just actual cakes off in the distance. Colorful paper wrappers cradle the sweets, which are forged with pumpkin batter, chocolate cake, butter-pecan dough, and spice cake with apple-pie filling.

After being grown on the owner's family's El Salvador coffee plantation, Topéca coffee is then shipped directly to its coffeehouse downtown in the Mayo Hotel, where it is roasted fresh daily by the roast-master to ensure full flavor and complexity. While the coffeehouse's socially and environmentally friendly practices feed your soul and quench your thirst for justice, Topéca's menu takes care of your more tangible needs. Sample any of the daily roasts with a double macchiato ($2.80) plus a French press full of bean juice ($5 for a medium, $7.50 large), along with an iced latte ($3.20, $3.70, $4.10) for coffee-dessert. If your body requires fuel other than caffeine, let your tongue try on a cinnamon and honey crêpe ($4.95), or have a ham and brie panini with apricot preserves, its contents slipped comfortably between two luscious slices of wheatberry bread and then mercilessly pressed between the scorching sheets of fiery-grill metal ($6.50). Topéca Coffee, named for the original Arabica coffee bean called "Typica," also sells bags of whole-bean coffee for home-brewed delights ($8.99), enabling you to trace the origins of your cup contents no matter where you're drinking it.