The Cove At Maenporth — Restaurant in England

I’ve eaten in The Cove many times over the last 4 years. This was my first visit since MC took over the restaurant. We booked on a Sunday lunchtime expecting to be able to order a Sunday roast. However, after the looking at the menu it became apparent there was no Sunday roast. Spoke to the waiter & he she said it would come back on the menu after the summer. Fair enough, we should have looked online or asked when making the booking.

My wife asked about dairy free sauces she could have with her steak. The waiter went off to check. He then came back to tell her the steak was from a cow & therefore dairy 😂🤦🏻‍♂️ I don’t think he quite got it.

In the absence of a Sunday roast I ordered rib-eye steak with peppercorn sauce, skinny chips & broccoli. The steak was enjoyable, the chips were OK but tasted like the oil should have been changed a few fry’s ago. The Peppercorn sauce was half the size I like to have. The best thing about the meal was the broccoli which was very tasty.

For dessert I ordered a raspberry & (something) gateaux. Pretty unforgettable as you can no doubt tell. Not great but not terrible. Would I order it again? No.

When the bill came it was approx 50% more than what I was expecting. My fault for not keeping an eye on it. But it would not have been an issue if the meal had blew my mind.

Overall: Disappointing & overpriced were my thoughts. It seems to me MC has tried to keep some continuity with The Cove 1.0 as it was highly regarded, but it has lost the personal touch it used to have with a husband & wife team running it. Also the food isn’t as good as it was. The decor needs to be refreshed especially the toilets, flooring by the bar area. It feels dated & not what one expects when paying the kind of prices MC charges. The staff seemed young & inexperienced. I’m sure the after 6pm Michael Caines tasting menu is a lot tastier & I would hope a better experience but given the experience I had & the lightness in my pocket after eating at The Cove, I don’t think I’ll be back anytime soon. Unless I hear some big changes have happened. Damn shame as I would have been a...

Mediocre at best, perhaps we got an off night but both the service and food quality were both poor and I struggled with a 1 or 2 star at best.

We had high hopes for The Cove and had booked three evening meals as were staying nearby. We cancelled all our subsequent bookings after our first meal due to the problems we found.

Service Sadly we found the service to be poor, we sat 20:00 and were not approach for drinks orders until 20:20. Wine glasses were not taken away from the table even though we asked as was rather clumsy kids, had to ask three times.

Food The food was overall mediocre at best, any time I eat at a restaurant and feel I could do significant better at home theres a problem. The lowlights:

Scallops - Overcooked and very small (having spent the last couple of weeks in Cornwall I order scallops when on the menu and these were clearly the worst of 4 restaurants I tried them in).

Tricolore salad. Let's say swimming in balsamic vinegar.

Kids burger. Way over-cooked, dry and rather inedible.

Hake - Supposedly served with parmentier potatoes and chorizo, in fact served with an acidic tomato sauce, one piece of potato and large chunks of Chorizo.

Wine - Given we are in Cornwall I think the only English Sparkly was Nytimber Classic brut and rather over-priced at £80 a bottle. All the other restaurants we visited offered some of the good quality local options such as Camel Valley. Seems to be lazy wine selection.

Location Easily the best bit of the restaurant is its location right behind the beach with some nice views.

Summary I would recommend you skip The Cove as its clearly not offering the level of quality to match the bill and until they address the service and food quality its a waste of your money. Instead drive 10 minutes and try some of the restaurants in Falmouth which we found offer excellent food and service (such as Indidog,...

Lovely location - TERRIBLE food and APPALING service.

We had special occasion to celebrate but this was sadly an extremely disappointing meal. One of our party has been to the Cove a number of times and had excellent food and service and felt upset that it was not up to it's usual standard and he was embarrassed to have recommend it.

The restraunt hasn't been running for long since lockdown and we were told the front of house and kitchen staff were new BUT the service was extremely slow, we waited over an hour for starters (which were average at best)

The main courses we mixed - two of our party had lemon sole which was delicious (but not completely cooked at the thickest part) one had the linguine ( quite nice but unmemorable) and one had the monkfish which was awful , the fish itself was ok but the sauce was inedible. I still paid for it but it certainly was not worth the money. ( it wasn't worth half of the money if I'm honest)

The bill also took a really long time and was incorrect which then took even longer to rectify.

The restraunt were arrogant about the fact that we shouldn't expect it to be perfect when the kitchen and waiting staff were so new... They did taste the inedible sauce and agreed that it wasn't up to scratch but argued that the chef was new, they still insisted on charging full price for dodgy food.

If new management took over it would be worth going for the location but currently it's...