The Loft Restaurant & Terrace — Restaurant in Great Britain

The loft is a light and comfortable place to eat. The decor is quaint, welcoming and informal. The one way system works well and ensures that they are taking the crisis seriously. The crab and Crayfish crumpet was ordered by three of the party. We agree unanimously that it was light and crispy. Topped with flavoursome seafood that made for a perfectly balanced starter that didn't reduce our hunger for more food. In fact it made us crave for more of what they may have had in store. The crab linguine was a generous helping for a restaurant pasta dish, the ingriedients were fresh and for a chilli lover there was a perfect amount of spice, perhaps a warning for someone who only likes mild food. The only complaint was that it could have had more crab. The sirloin steak was cooked to perfection and melted in the mouth. The peppercorn sauce didn't distract or overpower as it sometimes threatens to in some places but just complimented the dish. The chips were chunky and fluffy, for me a little salty but to many I think they would be perfect. The side portion of onion rings were ample in quantity and broke up the flavour of the steak well. The garlic mushrooms were a huge portion and were certainly garlicky. They actually became a bit much by the end, shared between 2 would have fixed this so perhaps my greed was the reason for my mushroom fatigue. No fault of the restaurant. The chowder was beautiful, there wasn't loads of mussels to take apart but the ones it had were huge and with the chunks of cod made for a well portioned and tasty chowder. Our only piece of feedback was that it needed a second piece of bread. My mam enjoyed the mojito, it was a large, refreshing cocktail that wasn't overpoweringly alcoholic. The mint made its presence known in every positive way. The gingerbread Espresso martini was a promise of a twist on the modern classic. The portion was good but the flavour didn't pack the gingerbread punch you'd expect when it was ordered. If described as an espresso martini it would have been almost perfect, the gingerbread flavour was lost and appeared to be just a small dusting on the top. The loft was a new addition to our annual St Ives holiday, long may it stay...

We booked a trip through Cornwall on the Statesman Chartered Train. We chose St Ives for our precious two and a half hour stop over, and googled restaurants in St Ives before noting the Loft appeared worth a visit according to reviews. I booked a table for two, weeks in advance, and was enthused to see Lobster Thermadore, a firm favourite of mine, on the menu. I noted the need to let the restaurant know in advance that I would be ordering this dish. I set an alarm on my phone, calling them two days before our visit, to confirm our table and also inform them that I would be ordering the lobster dish. The surprising response to this news, was that lobsters might be difficult to find(!) and might cost up to one hundred pounds. I stated quite clearly that the cost was unimportant. To spare everyone a long read, the restaurant had not bothered to source the lobsters and told me that the fishing boats had not been out. We ordered a starter because we were starving I had the chowder, my wife had the Mussels. The first mussel into her mouth burnt her tongue so badly, it is still painful a day later! At the bottom of my delicious chowder, I found a mussel with half of one side of its shell missing and it had not opened at all. I spent the rest of the day awaiting the digestive consequences. Thankfully, they did not manifest. I am not a complainer at heart, but this was not a great experience. I later heard a local performer telling visitors that the boats had been out, and had returned earlier that morning. I will let you, the reader, arrive at your own conclusion having imagined this was your one annual 'extravagance'. For us, this pretty much ruined our painfully brief visit to what was otherwise, a very...

An interesting place, tucked away on the rooftops of the town.

Pluses - Excellent food! Dishes we had were fish and chips and the baked butternut squash and both were delicious. Decor was lovely, nice twinkly lights and candles. View was quite nice, although they specifically say on their site that it's rooftops only - well, it would depend on where you sit and we actually had quite a nice view of SOME of the town. Prices are reasonable enough ... for the food alone.

Minuses - It's very small and cramped and, thusly, gets quite noisy. Not really a place to go if you want a quiet, romantic dinner.

The biggest quibble that we had, however, was the service. Reading some of the other reviews, it seems others share this quibble. The staff are terrible! Firstly, they forget to bring a glass with one of our drinks and when we asked one of the girls to bring us one she got talking with another girl and forgot about us. I went up to get one and then, about 15 minutes later, the first girl brings another! Then they forgot to replace the cutlery I had used for my starter so I specifically had to ask AGAIN. Then, after we had finished our mains, it took them half an hour (I timed them!) to remove our plates! In such a small space, one would think they would notice, but they passed our table many times without any attention at all. After EVENTUALLY tearing themselves away from chatting to their colleagues, they cleared our plates. We had coffees and asked for the bill. Girl said she'd bring the card machine over 'in a moment' and, surprise surprise, got chatting and completely forgot. So, we had to ask for the card machine...