We are directed between a pair of floor-sweeping emerald silk curtains into a muted, atmospherically-lit gallery space. A green velvet tubular lounge on a rug of wild mink, (with a conservation-slanted backstory) occupies the centre of the room beneath a gently tinkling chandelier. Among artworks illuminated on the walls are an immediately recognisable Picasso, an iteration from Sidney Nolan’s “Leda and Swan” series and a set of tribal spears.

We are at Tasmania’s eternally controversial-with-purpose art gallery, Mona, for high tea.  We’ve dressed, as instructed, in green, gold, white or black (we have both chosen green) accessorised by gifted elbow-length velvet gloves and jewellery borrowed from a glass cabinet that our butler, Hepburn has unlocked, allowing us to choose pieces, before fastening them round our necks and wrists. Bowing, he seats us at a marble table beneath an amethyst ostrich-feather lamp and pours sparkling wine into heavy crystal glasses.

A salon that pays homage to curator and artist Kirsha Kaechele’s great-grandmother, “Tootsie,” and her renowned high teas, the Ladies’ Lounge High Tea for Two is a relatively new Mona experience.  It is, as the name implies, strictly female-only, aside from the elegantly-attired Hepburn, his sidekick, “Robinson” and a blindfolded saxophonist who sits playing soft jazz in the corner.

Hepburn fills us in on Tootsie’s dynastic family saga that journeys from Switzerland and Europe’s royal courts, to a pickle-making empire in Utah. The glamourous, bohemian Tootsie lived an indulgent and envious life, hosting the European jet set and artists. Indeed, Hepburn points out, one of the Picassos is a nude of Tootsie’s daughter, Kirsha’s grandmother Carolyn.

High tea is 12-courses with matched drinks. We are blindfolded for the first. Designed to be eaten with the fingers, the reveal afterwards has us in peals of semi-scandalised laughter. Following come delicious dainties, both sweet and savoury, served in any number of unexpected receptacles – skewered on golden branches, in eggshells topped with gold leaf, in humidors and pearlized scallop shells that Hepburn sends simultaneously spinning like an ambidextrous DJ.

While the high tea experience is restricted to two ladies each session, the lounge itself is open to all women and tucked in the corner, we are both observers and the observed – part of the artwork.  Women stop in front of us to openly stare, until inevitably, curiosity overcomes and they ask us whether we’re “paid to sit there and drink champagne and eat all day?”

By the end of the two hours, it feels exactly like we have been eating and drinking all day – we are utterly satiated. It’s a generous and joyful experience and one best shared with an open-minded friend. And as Kirsha says: “Leave your men at home. Book a driver.”

The High Tea for Two experience is limited to two ladies per sitting and runs twice daily (11am and 2.30pm) on Saturdays and Sundays only. Each sitting runs for two hours. The $500.00 package (for two) includes multi-course nibbles, matched refreshments, exclusive butler service and museum entry.

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