SANDWICHES, SALADS, AND HEARTY SOUPS often popped up on the menu at Tilly’s Tea Room, Sharon Moore’s longstanding cafe inside The Fashion Mall’s Saks Fifth Avenue. So when a real estate agent offered her a recently vacated spot on 116th Street, she leapt at the chance: At last, she could open the full-service fish-and-chips shop she’d been mulling. And after an ambitious construction project and some unexpected changes to her business, that’s exactly what she did, launching Max & Tilly’s just as 2024 reached its end.
Moore was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and came to the U.S. in the 1990s as a freelance journalist on the auto racing beat. Years later, she pivoted to the restaurant game, opening her first tearoom in Fishers. Daughter Matilda, the “Tilly” in the cafe’s name, was barely knee-high, pushing toys around the floor near a counter stocked with baskets of Cadbury Crunchie and fudge bars, as well as glass domes over caramel slices and Aunt Kathy’s carrot cake.
Back then, Moore and her crew would occasionally wheel a fryer out on the lawn for fish-and-chips nights, but those days ended when the refurbished house that counted Tilly’s as a tenant was slated for demolition. After moving the business to Saks, her days of casual outdoor fish fries were over, and her days of celebrity fundraisers and fashion previews began.
Moore’s new business will happily cater to Saks shoppers, of course, but also hopes to attract its neighbors and farther-flung fans of British cuisine. On a recent visit, a hearty but slightly modest steak and merlot pie was a highlight, with its deeply savory filling of tender steak tips and plenty of rich gravy. The Matilda sandwich is just as grown-up as its namesake, a budding cake decorator who is now often behind the cash register. Her eponymous sarnie is a toasty swath of baguette piled with turkey, smoked gouda pimento cheese, and tangy lemon aioli.
A warm bowl of cock-a-leekie soup made a fine accompaniment, and traditional spotted dick—the steamed, raisin-studded pudding with the entertaining name—was a perfectly sweet finish, if a bit dense and served cold from the cooler.
Moore’s dream of bringing true British fare is fully realized in her fish and chips, which are truly spectacular. The golden filets were as flaky as fried fish comes, without being greasy, and the peel-on fries were hearty and compulsively snackable. Both American and British treatments came with accompaniments of tartar sauce, earthy gravy, and malt vinegar.
The chips were great straight up, but I also tried them as one of the shop’s Filthy Fries platters with a douse of that gravy and a scant covering of cheese curds, a nod to Canadian poutine. I could definitely see myself coming back for those. And the mushy peas, which are made with dried peas that are soaked and boiled, were a perfect al dente, mushy in name only.
Some savory, cheese-and-herb-flecked scones that we took home with some house-made clotted cream and Moore’s Earl Grey–infused fig preserves were both a perfect pick-me-up the next day and a hint of things to come. That’s because just as Moore began work on Max & Tilly’s (the name nods to both her daughter and her adult son), she got word that Saks was shutting down, leaving her tea shop without a home. It seemed like kismet when the spot next to her new business opened up after tenant
Memento Zero Proof Lounge shuttered.
Now Moore is working to reopen Tilly’s Tea Room in the neighboring space, this time with a wine bar added. She’s also taken over the building’s vast rooftop patio, where she plans to continue her legacy of private teas and parties. Perhaps those days of star-studded charity events and glitzy runway shows aren’t in the rearview mirror, after all.
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