St Tudy Inn — Restaurant in England

We was looking forward to trying St Tudy Inn for an evening meal whilst on holiday in Cornwall so pre-booked a table in advance. Got seated on a table that had a sticky feel to it and chipped shabby looking surface. I ordered lamb, my partner ordered the venison which was on the special menu. Meals cost £25 and £26 respectively. Whilst waiting, our waitress had to interrupt us after noticing we were missing a set of cutlery then returned to bring more. We drank "mocktails" which were £6 each - non-alcoholic options were lacking. My lamb meal came without vegetables, so I ordered these separately for an additional £5.50.

Meals came. My lamb was cooked nicely enough, tender, with a reasonable portion size of meat - though the garlic mash was fairly bland and could easily have been more generous. The vegetables were adequate but should have came in the meals pricing in my opinion.

Sadly my partner could not hide her disappointment when her meal was brought over. Now I appreciate venison is an expensive meat, but the portion size could only be described as meagre, and looked more like a starter than a main. It came with potato puree which whilst you're not expecting to be a pile of mash, was barely identifiable on the plate. Both meals were just about acceptable in terms of warmness. My partner said it was cooked nicely enough but that it just wasn't enough - and she is not a big eater by any stretch. I ended up giving my partner half of my mash portion to compensate somewhat.

We declined deserts as didn't want to risk being further disappointed.

If you are being charged fine dining prices, then all parts of the experience have to be on point; sadly in our case this was far from.

We spent £70 on two meals & two drinks and ended up snacking when we returned to our accommodation.

We eat out several times locally during our holiday, and this was the only disappointing experience we had. I am loathe to leave poor reviews in what are difficult times for hospitality, but in this case I feel...

Eat well and sleep well is the "moto" for St Tudy's Inn. However, eat well and sleep well are both part of a bigger picture/ experience that is professionalism and hospitality. We are a couple of a healthcare professional and a food industry scientist that decided to travel in the UK this year (Cornwall) with our motorbike. Unfortunately, we had a really disappointing experience with the management at St Tudy's Inn upon our arrival. We had a room allocated to us that was already occupied and we have been told that they were expecting us on the following day rather than the day we arrived. Despite we confirmed with booking that our booked date was the one we stated, the manager kept saying that on his system they were expecting us tomorrow. I have provided the proof of the expected stay as stated in my booking confirmation and also explained that we had just travelled 6 hours through storm Francis and if a mistake has occurred they should at least help us find accommodation. I felt that if we did not push for help we would not get any. The manager was not at all engaging in the conversation and kept saying that it wasn't their fault because on their system we were booked for the following day and the conversation did not lead anywhere. I was very surprised to witness this lack of compassion and sympathy for what had happened that was not our fault either. Eventually after we demanded some help, they found us a room 30 minutes drive from theirs with double the price of the one we had booked with them. We said that we cannot pay this price and as a gesture of good will and professionalism they should pay the excess amount on top of what we would pay them. This was not accepted and the manager kept saying it was not their fault. I felt helpless 6 hours away from home and very tired. After 2 hours eventually they stated that someone had cancelled their room and placed us in one of their rooms. Until now, we have not received any...

If I had to summarise my experience with St Tudy with a phrase is "great location, poor management". Unfortunately hospitality is not a professional soft skill that you can develop, however customer service and problem solving is something that management should consider developing. We arrived after a terrible journey looking forward for our room... The information provided were wrong (they gave us a key to a room that other people were already in!), they created a mess as they mixed up our arrival date with someone else and at the end they suggested to stay to different place with double the price that we booked. What I would expect is a professional behaviour instead of a "it is not my problem" attitude. We booked through booking.com our room, having a proof of our booking and through a confirmation email from St Tudy manager the day before... His response to this problem was "in our system it shows that your booking is for tomorrow"... this was just an unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour. Finally after 2hrs of negotiations they found out that they have a cancellation in one of their 4 rooms...( What really happened is that they mixed the reservations managing just 4 rooms...). Special thanks to Julie (the housekeeper) and Oscar (manager's son I assume) who were the only people that they were physically there and they were trying to find a solution! Business management will have to use more Oscar in problem solving than Liam... PS: We havent received a formal apology email from the business until now. Hopefully our disappointing experience will trigger some behavioural improvement to the managers for their...