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C5 at the Royal Ontario Museum

100 Queen's Park, Toronto. 416-586-7928. Tea for two with tax and tip, $65.

Afternoon tea is a completely useless notion. Here in North America, where we eat three square meals a day, why on earth would anyone want to pause in midafternoon and eat a lot of sugar and fat, only to have dinner less than three hours later? In England, whence the custom of afternoon tea is imported, the custom is for "tea" to be the equivalent of an early supper, with nothing too substantial to follow afterward. In Spain, where they do not appear to drink tea, it would be a great comfort both to pause and to fill the tank at 4 p.m., since 1) dinner never happens before 9 p.m. and 2) it could be tapas, meaning somewhat insubstantial.

Which is exactly what we did after tea at C5. Tea at the ROM followed a few hours later by tapas at Cava is Hogtown heaven. The ROM's crystal dining room is the newest high tea spot in town - and now the best. They serve afternoon tea for a relatively painless $25 Thursday to Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m., which is clever on their part as a bid to maximize business and (they must hope) to capitalize on the footsore and hungry museum-goers.

Despite the current controversy about both the aesthetics and the convenience of the ROM crystal, it is tailor-made for afternoon tea. The unattractive aspect of the crystal is the foreplay: Signage remains confusing and it's never obvious which entrance to use. But once we're at the top of the crystal, all is well. It offers a spectacular view south and west, and lays out the CN and other towers against the genteel backdrop of the university's Gothic spires. The big sky, ever changing, is the star of the show. As the fall deepens, we'll be closing in on sunset at tea time and C5 is the place to watch it: From pale blue sky through pink and coral at sunset, the restaurant's decor in late afternoon is a parade of changing light. The room itself is almost as magnificent as the sky, two great glass walls punctuated by black girders and white columns, all at angles.

On arrival one is offered a choice of 10 different teas in four categories: black, green, white (less caffeine than black) and herbal. I am slightly disappointed that the tea (all from Mighty Leaf Teas) is in a muslin bag rather than loose with a strainer, but it arrives in a fab modern stainless steel pot with a clever internal strainer gizmo that holds the bag above the water after the first cup has been poured, so that the remaining tea cannot over-steep. As a tea lover, I am delighted with the taste. In particular, the Earl Grey Organic blows Twinings all the way out of the water.

To whet the appetite, they bring a generous slice of freshly made quiche with chanterelles and cave-aged gruyere. The crust is buttery and fragile, the filling a custardy cloud. Please sir, I want some more! These superb quiches sit on Wedgwood plates - each person's plate a different pattern.

Then comes the classic tea service. The three-tiered confection platter is in this case plain white and modern as befits the room rather than the traditional wannabe-British baroque silver thingy. On it is a parade of small but intense pleasures.

Start at the bottom with the three small savouries, each one worth two bites: A house-made corn chip with avocado relish and a good chunk of moist lobster. A perfect little sphere of choux pastry, crisp and unsoggy, filled with sweet duck confit and a silken slice of foie gras. Least entertaining of the three but correct homage to the British tea sandwich is crustless white bread filled with crab and wasabi (bland crab, wasabi flavour MIA).

Now on to the sweets, found on the middle and top levels of the tiered platter. Two bites of dark dense Earl Grey chocolate cake with uber-buttery passion-fruit icing are not even close to enough. Bright green pistachio fragments dot the top of another two-bite confection, an impossibly moist green-tea sponge cake with a thick green butter-cream lid.

The top tier is home to both the sublime and the ridiculous. Surely this madeleine is the eensiest one ever, and how could Marcel Proust ever have been moved to write his remembrance on the basis of one such tiny bite, however interestingly inflected with honey and pink peppercorn? The sublime, on the other hand, is a melt-in-the-mouth scone with (not quite enough) Devonshire cream and fruit preserves.

Having inhaled everything on offer, including all the lovely tea in the lovely teapot, we are slightly more convinced of the value of the useless, i.e. afternoon tea. What sweet and welcome respite from one's quotidian responsibilities. To cease one's labours just after 3 in the afternoon and sit down to tiny bites of buttery indulgence is to affirm just how important it is to do useless things. The older I get, the more important they become, these small acts of pure pleasure. To paraphrase a cliché: If I had it all to do over again, I would dance more, work less and stop to drink tea with good friends more often.