Forest Side Hotel — Hotel in Great Britain

We had booked this a year before for our wedding anniversary, having normally spent very happy times with excellent food, drink and accommodation at their nearby sister hotel, the sadly now closed Hipping Hall||||Given that it is run and managed by the same small luxury gourmet hotel chain, and indeed is their "flagship" we were confidently expecting a similar, if not better experience||||We booked via the website, and having reviewed the room and dining options, we went for "cosy" room and the shorter tasting menu||||Our stay fell far below expectations||||FIRSTY; POSITIVES||||BOOKING PROCESS AND RESERVATION MANAGEMENT||||The booking and check-in system is very efficient and left us feeling secure about our booking and our dietary requirements||||This was reinforced by a couple of useful phone-calls to reception to confirm some details re location, local amenities and check-in times nearer the time of our stay||||PUBLIC ROOMS||||We were impressed with the layout, decor and ambience of the reception, lounge, bar and dining areas, all very tasteful and relaxing, albeit with some rather strange piped music, thankfully at low volume||||The patio areas also looked inviting but dull weather prevented us using them ||||STAFF||||We had no problems at all with the staff throughout our stay in all parts of the hotel, we found them uniformly excellent and professional||||The receptionist came to the front door to meet us and showed us to our room ||( Beech) and also portered our bags for us ( something which seems to have improved from reading past reviews)||||She then, with some embarrassment, had to apologise for the extreme heat in the bedroom ( 25 degrees ) and offered us an extra fan to supplement the noisy one already in the room, saying that regulating the room temperatures has always been a problem in the hotel||||We had ordered a welcoming glass of champagne which was duly delivered by the excellent sommelier shortly afterwards and he managed with some difficulty to find somewhere to put the glasses safely due to the cramped nature of the room||||Later on we found the bar and restaurant staff excellent; competent, friendly, polite, attentive and non-intrusive||||The restaurant manager was assiduous in arranging an alternative dish to accommodate our dietary needs||||BATHROOM PRODUCTS AND TOILETRIES||||These were very good but did not compensate for the other problems with the bathroom ( see below)||||||CANAPÉS||||We started our evening in the bar lounge with some pleasant cocktails then moved to a well positioned table in the restaurant where we were given some very inventive and delicious canapés, adding to our expectations of the dinner to come||||BREAD||||Very good bread at dinner ( served freshly baked with good butter) and breakfast toast||||||||||OUR PROBLEMS.......||||THE ROOM||||Defined as "cosy" so we weren't expecting a suite, and were aware from your web site description that the room would be on the small side but adequate for a one night stay with some decent space to move around, functional Wi-Fi, a modern bathroom and giving us a refreshing and undisturbed night's sleep after dinner||||We were, however, extremely disappointed with what we were given and feel it fell well below our expectations having read your publicity ||||First of all the room was, as noted above, extremely hot, this despite the heating being turned off in the hotel ( the radiator was cold and the outside temperature 12 degrees with no sun) ||The room temperature never dropped below 25 degrees during our stay, despite use of the noisy fan ( which we had to turn off to attempt sleep) and having the windows open to their small maximum extent ( about 10cm) and us sitting with the door open until we went down to dinner, preventing any privacy ||||It would be fair to say that we did not enjoy having to drink our celebratory glass of champagne ( nice champagne by the way) in that environment, one of us perched on the bed, the other on an uncomfortable chair||||Luckily we had not ordered a full bottle, it would have been a struggle to find anywhere to safely place an ice bucket in the room although the cold would have been welcome||||The room, although spotlessly clean, was small and cramped with a small, soft, unsupportive double bed, little wardrobe space and uncomfortable furniture ||( I know this from sitting out of bed for five hours later that night due to an inability to sleep because of the heat ( we had to turn off the very noisy fan) and party noise from outside the room||||We would challenge the claim on the website that "you certainly will feel at home" ... our home certainly does not contain intolerably hot, poky rooms, uncomfortable furniture and inaccessible bathrooms||||The bathroom was also small with an old fashioned shower attachment over a high-sided standard bath, difficult to access ||We certainly did not feel it was "A Perfect Haven of Tranquility" as described on the Web Site||||Importantly and sadly, Wi-Fi was poor to non existent with intermittent, unreliable connection and inability to download some material I needed ||||Overall, this is far below what should be expected in any modern hotel, we would expect "luxury accommodation" to include high-speed, reliably connected ||Wi-Fi||||To be frank, we have had much better and more comfortable sleeping accommodation in Premier Inns and Travel Lodges and the high price fell well short of reflecting value for money||||We felt that our break was spoiled before it even began by the problems with the accommodation, leading to intense disappointment and casting a shadow over our stay ||||We really need to understand why such a substandard room can justifiably be priced at what is a luxury room rate and feel that the lower end of Premier Inn rate of £80-120 for (local hotels) would be more than a fair price for the room for one night ( not per person)||||DINNER||||We have already noted how much we enjoyed the bar, dining room, cocktails, canapés and menu changes||||Also the excellence of the sommeillier who offered us a choice of "standard" or "prestige" wine list||||We chose the "prestige", despite the substantially higher price ( which was clearly explained to us), as some of the wines on the standard list were known to us, expecting some interesting wine and food combinations as the evening progressed||||This again was partly based on our experience at Hipping Hall, where we were always very happy with the wine selections made to match their own tasting menus||||What we had was four small glasses of wine to match the four courses||||Although this is, of course, a matter of personal taste, we found them mostly uninteresting, and certainly not worth the very high prices||||We do, of course, expect some degree of "mark up" on restaurant wine but do feel this should be proportionate to the quality of the wine selected||||The dinner itself was disappointing in the extreme:-||||||We each had:||||1) What was either half a small scallop or a third of a large one, with a wilted leaf, allegedly but unidentifiably Pak Choi and a morsel of purported belly pork.....all lacking taste .....it was gone in a single bite||Nice sauce though, we drank the lot with the excellent bread provided||||2) The piece of cod in the next course was a 2.5 cm disc of bland tasteless fish and some "shrimp sauce"..again a single bite||The sauce was good, although lacking any physical evidence of shrimp and we ate it all, feeling hungry by then||||3a) An "amuse bouche" of lamb belly in a 2 cm cube ( one each) ...this was delicious, leading us to perhaps expect a more substantial main course ||||3b) Main course of Lamb...... lamb fillet about 7 x 3 x 1.5 cm small with unrendered fat on the outside....we both found this tough and much less well flavoured than the belly cube which preceded it||||4) Small but interesting pudding ( 3 mouth-fulls maximum)....quite tasty and novel and the only course that demonstrated any real inventiveness on the part of the chef||||We were then offered the Cheese board at £17.50 supplement per head||||Although very hungry by then ( we were glad we had had lunch on the way up and the complementary ginger cake in the room ) ||||We do not like eating cheese late at night and would not wish to have to pay extra for this||||We did notice other diners tucking in, presumably to assuage their hunger after their own dinners||||Interestingly our lunch time restaurant in Bowness the following day offered the same Courtyard Dairy Cheese ( which we know and like) as a sharing plate with artisan biscuits, chutney etc for £8.50 for two which we feel is a more accurate reflection of the cost and effort of unwrapping the cheeses, plating and serving them||||We can't really comment on the food and wine pairings as the single or double bites of food did not provide us with the opportunity to do so||||Overall, we felt that the dishes had been "pared down" from what we had been used to before from your company and were expecting that night, but maybe we were just unlucky as other recent TA reviewers were much happier with their own dinners||||BREAKFAST||||Followed a night of very poor sleep ||||Served again by attentive staff in the dining room||||My wife had a very pleasant fresh fruit salad which she enjoyed; and my Bran Flakes successfully survived the journey from their box to my bowl, retaining crispiness on the way||||We both had "Eggs Royale" served on an indifferent toasted muffin and with smoked salmon cut very thick and still cold from the fridge so difficult to eat and lacking in flavour||||The toast was very nice||||Tea acceptable|| ||So what did we get for something north of £800 for our "luxury gourmet" stay as the lead-in to our anniversary break?||||1) Cramped, intolerably hot and noisy accommodation||||2) A poor interrupted night's sleep of three to four hours ||||3) A disappointing substandard celebration meal which left us feeling hungry and dissatisfied||||We certainly had a memorable wedding anniversary celebration, but for all the wrong reasons||||At check-out we were asked .."Did you enjoy your stay" and explained at length to the receptionist the reasons we didn't||||This was followed about an hour and a half later by an email from the manager asking to discuss our experience so he could understand what had gone wrong||||This led to a very civilised and helpful exchange of emails between us, discussing the experience we had and ending with us receiving a refund of most of our Bill ||||This response and the behaviour of the staff throughout our stay was exemplary and results in the two star review ( it would have been one otherwise)||||The "luxury hotel/gourmet break" offer in the Lake District is very competitive ||||I wish the management and staff well and hope they can resolve the temperature regulation problems which seem recurrent but I'm afraid we wont...

Stayed here 1 night upon check in the lady on reception was very helpful and professional we had booked 2 rooms dinner bed and breakfast 8 course tasting menu after we had checked in we went down to the lounge for drinks and the birthday cake i had pre ordered from the hotel for my mohers birthday the cake was dry it had just been taken out of the fridge as it was very cold and hard the cake should of been taken out of fridge prior i had told them in a email before we arrived when we would want the cake and i told them again when check into hotel so no excuses can be made . the service in the restaurant that evening was impersonal not once did i see a smile on the face of any of the front of house staff the young chef that came to the table to serve us the beetroot dish engaged with us more than the front house staff the front of house staff were in uniform but in desperate need of a iron and scuffed shoes at the level forest side claims to be at i think this is not acceptable , the food was good but in my opinion not 4 rosette , 1 star level i think its 3 rosette level our venison dish came out and all 3 were cold we did send them back and the kitchen did rectify the problem but the front of house staff did not seem pleased with us that we had the audacity to complain and send cold food back .||our room was called hazel a dog friendly room this was classed as a superb room room was ok not a wow was very clean the heating in both rooms we had did not work so cold rooms as was January i will attach a pic which shows the heating was on in our room but not working , the venetian blind in the bathroom was bent and did not close properly , the carpet in hallway was frayed .||breakfast in the morning was terrible we had 2 full breakfasts and everything on the plate was overcooked , the egg royal should traditionally come with a muffin but was with bread the bread was so hard could not even cut it with a knife , we asked for toast we got our toast after four other tables had received there toast and all four of those tables were not even in the restaurant before we had ordered our toast i mentioned this to the waiter all he said that he was working his way through the orders he had for toast if thats the case he must be incompetent at his job upon check out of hotel we raised some of the issues we had with the receptionist she said that the manager would be in contact with us that will not happen as i made a comment on there face book page all they did was delete the my comment and block me also the manager never makes a effort to reply to peoples comments and reviews made across all social media which i believe is wrong the manager there is the face of business at least he can acknowledge his customers .||i have attached some pictures of 2 dishes we had from there 8 course tasting menu and the pictures of the same 2 dishes that are on there face book page the dished we had not same as dishes on there face book page there was actually certain ingredients missing from ours and the presentation was not the same if they had served that to a AA inspector or a Michelin inspector then i am sure they would be downgraded as i said before the food is worth 3 rosette .||My overall opinion of forest side is there is a lack of professionalism at the level they are at i think they must no when they have inspectors in and then turn it on for them .||this is a honest review from a husband and a wife that have 52 years experience between them...

I’ve just spent 2 nights here with my partner and dog, and here are my thoughts:

Pros: beautiful manor on gorgeous grounds, the overall atmosphere is pleasantly serene walkable to Grasmere village very close drive to Ambleside and its activities we stayed in a Superb room, which was plenty spacious, stocked with tea & coffee, and had a nice bathroom with full tub dog friendly rooms are all in the same wing with easy access to outside every day we got a delicious little treat, from treacle tarts to fresh cookies and a much appreciated carafe of ice water the food at the restaurant was wonderful, and the service was friendly and helpful. They also amended my partner’s tasting menu to accommodate his shellfish allergy. breakfast was so, so good. It was hard to make decisions of what to order, there were too many tasty options. Don’t skip the breakfast.

Cons: room service breakfast and/or takeaway lunches had to be ordered the night before, so don’t forget if that’s what you want to do! the bathroom was aesthetically pleasing but didn’t have intuitive design. Things like a toilet paper holder that constantly made it so paper would hang down and touch the floor and get wet because it’s directly under the sink, or a lack of towel racks or just any place to hang anything wet, or the shower with zero shelving so all your toiletries would go on the shower floor. the mattress on the bed was desperate for a rotation and a couple of good slaps. Ours had a deep groove and a definite slope. the sofa was also in desperate shape, with a slope so steep you couldn’t sit on it without sliding forwards. we stayed on a particularly warm summer night, and had one very weak fan. We would have loved to leave the windows open wide but otherwise mosquitos and other buzzers would join us. free wifi was a bit dodgy

Of note to those coming with their dog: it’s true, it’s not the most dog-friendly place I’ve stayed at. The only main part of the hotel the dog was allowed in was the bar/lounge, and only at a specific time in the afternoon. We found it easy to order breakfast to our room (which was happily delivered without any issue, just had to be ordered the night before) and to be out exploring for most of the day. When we came back from a day out, our dog was exhausted and would go to sleep while we dined downstairs, or we made dinner plans elsewhere that were dog friendly. I wouldn’t recommend bringing your dog if you cannot trust them to behave in new surroundings by themselves, or if you can’t take them out for proper exercise during the day. While a dog bed, a towel and bowls were provided, we brought our own of everything so our dog would be comfy and could settle in more easily.

Cons/niggles aside, I can’t fault anyone at the hotel. We left feeling happy and relaxed, and which is what I think...