The Pityme Inn — Restaurant in England

We are on holiday in Cornwall and generally only eat out once when away. Cooking for ourselves for the rest of the time. We chose the PityMe Inn because of its good reviews and the online menu had a number of dishes we like the look of. Booking online was easy. On arrival the restaurant was well presented and the staff friendly and helpful. We arrived at around 18.00 and were told that a number of the items on the menu were no longer available. Sadly the scotch egg we were looking forward too, and the scallops shown on the online menu were not available (these were the main reason we selected this restaurant). We sat, got drinks and ordered. Another couple that arrived after us decided to leave without ordering food once they were informed the items they wanted to order were not available. I wish we'd done the same. This is my appraisal of the food.

Starter:- Calamari. Well cooked (tender) but the batter was heavy with oil, this made them rather sickly. They were also very over seasoned with salt.

Main 1:- Mussels. Very good, generous portion, well presented. Sadly the focaccia bread that it was served with was very poor, very dry and lacking in and depth of flavour.

Main 2:- Meat feast Pizza. Slightly underdone. I asked for mushrooms instead of chorizo which was fine but they were undercooked. The passata was overused and swamped the whole thing. The salami (if it was salami) looked like chorizo and was of a very low quality. I didn't finish it which is unheard of. I've had far better pizza from lidl.

Side dish:- Coleslaw. Dreadful. Sloppy cheap and nasty. Had one mouthful. I asked the waitress if this was made onsite or purchased as a catering pack, she didn't know. I'm guessing the latter. If it was made onsite the chef should be ashamed of himself. If I'd been served it on a burger I would have scraped it off.

I'll leave the owners with this thought. For many people these days, going out for a meal is a rare treat, either due to busy living or expense. This was our first meal out this year. We would have liked to made an evening out of it but ended up leaving after just one hour. Consider that your customers might just be there for something special, and not just another cover on table x. £64...

We checked out this place online as we were staying in Rock for a few nights. I eat anything and everything but the vegetarian options for my other half seemed very limited. However, according to the website, there was the option of pizzas so we booked a table. Having arrived promptly on a Friday evening, the first member of staff looked put out that we were there. There was no polite welcome or a friendly smile, only a "Name?". We thought she must have been new to the service industry so gave her the benefit of the doubt. We were shown to our seats and a second member of staff came after nearly 10 minutes and took our drink order of a bottle of wine. It was another 20 minutes before they came back to take our food order. No wine yet. When asked if we could get a vegetarian pizza we were told "That's only the outdoor menu and I'm not sure if we are still doing them after 7pm". But your online menu says you can get pizza inside. "Our online menu is wrong and hasn't been updated for a while". Ok, what's the 'Plant-based Burger' like? "I've no idea as I've never tried it". Hmm, we said we'd have to have a think. When the wine finally arrived after yet another 10 minutes, we said not to open it and that we felt there was too limited a choice so we would be leaving. The second member of staff said she understood completely and apologised. She is the reason for having any stars at all. I'm sure this is a nice pub, but they need to work on training the staff in customer service, allow the serving staff to taste the meals, have a couple of other vegetarian options, and ensure the website...

It's been over a year since I last visited and it's changed hands to become an independent inn.

The main changes are the introduction of four outside pods (presumably partly inspired by the pandemic but also maintains capacity as the "basement" is now a village store) and the removal of the pool table. A well stocked bar continues, as do the provision of some B&B accommodation (not used).

The village store has a reasonably wide range of produce, including some delicious inn-made ready meals. We find some of the offerings are more appealing to adults than (our) children but YMMV.

So. The food. This is, with one grumble aside, a huge improvement on what was served up before. Without exception, everything we had was bursting with flavour and colour, was freshly prepared, beautifully cooked, really well presented and generous in portion size. The food reminded me of a British version of the country French restaurant that has a small number of very well cooked dishes. Definitely good value and was very happy to be cajoled into a repeat visit by the boys!

The grumble? My wife is coeliac and 10-15 years ago, eating out used to be somewhat "challenging". The first menu had only a single starter (which didn't appeal at all) that could be served as gluten free. The second visit offered a second option but many other dishes could (should!) be offered as gluten free. Were it not for the rest of the meal more than compensating for this narrow offering, we would not have returned because these days most other eateries do cater better for coeliacs (and their...