St Kew Inn — Restaurant in England

Came for lunch with high expectations having cheered on Andy the head chef in GBM and also seen him (and liked the look of his food) in Rick Stein's show.

Expectations, on this occasion, were sadly not met though. And I'm a bit gutted to be honest.

Maybe I caught them on a bad day, or the flavours and textures are just not as much to my taste as I thought. But here's my thoughts.

Allergies - poor. I'm GF, and the catering for this particular allergy was "we'll remove anything containing gluten from the dish but we don't have anything to replace it with". This is the first restaurant, nay even food establishment in Cornwall that hasn't been able to fully cater for GF. Even the little tea rooms we've been to for lunch do GF bread etc. And I had an outstanding GF burger (with bun!) at Caffe Rojano's in Padstow. Bad start that reduced an already limited menu. Oysters - amazing. This was the highlight, delicious. Starters - poor. An underwhelming focaccia. Prawns served cold when I expected hot/barbequed (nothing to tell me this on the menu). Not de-vained which I find a bit poor for a restaurant. Very meh. Mains - average. I had the strip loin steak, I wasn't asked how I wanted it, so assumed medium would be the standard. It arrived very very rare. Partly my fault for not asking / specifying. I didn't send back thinking it'd be fine (I've eaten rare before and enjoyed it). Tough to cut through all the sinew etc, the crust was ok but not the flavour hit I was expecting, I ate less than half. The chips were hard as bullets. I couldn't get my fork in to them, when I succeeded they simply shattered like glass splinters. More like cubes of crisps. My wife had aubergine with ras al hanout. It was a whole aubergine, nothing special done to flavour it except the spices, was expecting some serious char flavours. Not soft and yummy but a bit firm so not a great eat. And very oily. Our 8 year old had fish and chips, she liked it, hooray finally!! I was jealous of the kids chips, she could get a fork in to them. Dessert - no idea. Gave up by then and left.

Extras: Service - ok. Nice people. But didn't ask how I liked my steak which was a bit of a fail. Also, very very slow. Even if we wanted dessert we were out of time. 2 hrs for starters and mains. My steak was removed from the bill which I appreciated.

Place - beautiful. The building and village are lovely. The outside space looks gorgeous. Can't fault this aspect.

WiFi - no provision for diners.

In summary I'm just so so disappointed. I really seriously wanted to love this place. With all the good reviews I've read I hope we got them on a bad day. But I wanted to post this for some balance. Maybe it's better to eat here in the evening and not for lunch? No idea. But I'm hugely disappointed it didn't live up to the hype for us. For the money, Padstow's many restaurants are...

We enjoyed a really delightful meal here last week at the beginning of half term. We are local but shamefully it's the first time we've been! Tables were time restricted but we didn't feel rushed at all - we enjoyed three courses in the time allocated and felt the courses were appropriately spread out. My husband had the Octopus and Bone Marrow which he said could potentially be up there with his best ever starter. As a pescatarian who sways towards vegetarianism I did not oblige 😂 I did however thoroughly enjoy the Mushroom starter on sour dough toast with a delightfully light creme fraiche. I find Mushroom starters can often be overpowered by garlic but the flavours on this starter were really well balanced, not too rich and not too filling before a main. My only slight critism was the toast was slightly over done but it didn't bother me enough to mention it. My husband enjoyed the "fish of the boat" which was a very nice monkfish with dressed kale and potatoes. I enjoyed the fish and chips - the peas and jalepeno tartar were particularly nice. Triple threat chips (really feel they should be renamed this) were excellent. Portions were really quite large - I couldn't finish my portion. My plate was void of oil which was excellent for me. Can't stand an oily/fatty fish and chips - it was cooked to perfection and not remotely dry. A very good piece of fish. We cautiously ordered desserts (as we were getting a bit full!) but I'm very glad we did! I had the nicest Creme Caranel with baked apple and toasted seeds. It was incredible. Staff were excellent, attentive and genuine. There was one lady who was particularly impressive, she had a great character about her and I admired her attitude towards waitressing, she seemed to genuinely enjoying herself and her interactions. Sadly didn't catch her name. Last slight critism, I was sat on a bench that wobbled quite precariously at the slightest of movement 😂 kept me on my toes though. Decor is traditional so I'm not overly surprised by a creaky bench.

Overall a lovely time had with my husband and we would absolutely return. As mentioned we both had three courses, two glasses of wine and a shandy and bill was around £80 before tip. For the experience we were very happy with that price. Highly recommended! Thank...

Excellent dishes and a lovely host Hugo ;) who kept returning to our table to make sure we were having a good time.

We walked in without reservations as it was close to our stay, and looked open. Was delighted to see there were dishes that featured the fish, so my husband and I each had a different kind. Overall very satisfied with the flavours, and creative ways in which natural ingredients are incorporated and play off of each other (compliments to the chef and all of the creative team from growers of the fresh ingredients to those preparing them.) They were quite busy with reservations so they did a great job with pacing orders and bringing them out.

The only negative had to be the fact that as a Latina from California living in England, I often am the target of discerning eyes when I enter predominantly white spaces. In this case it was a table of six elders to our right that were loudly talking about the “DEI Rubbish” in America, and how you have to find some the right “colour, and yada yada” that felt they had to very loudly proclaim their views in accordance with the Trump administration that is currently enacting the fourth reich in my home country.

I find that there are places that feel really comfortable to be in, and this was not one of them. It didn’t matter, as I am accustomed to this in England, often mistaken for a culture and ethnicity I am not a part of, completely detached from the reality that tanned skin can mean anything from Latino, to Middle East, but not all the same camp.

For my fellow people of colour, it is always us who have to have such courage, and elegance to keep on having a good time despite the negative energies that would rather spend their afternoon over a lovely dish, talking about how much they dislike a fairer and more diverse world.

I won’t be returning, but it was a good evening spent with my (white) husband, and getting visits from a very cute and peckish chocolate lab. I hope the table over didn’t notice, lest they proclaim how much chocolate labs are not supposed to be in spaces where only regular labs have the...