Fisherman's Cot — Restaurant in Mid Devon

We went here for my birthday and although the location is beautiful it is spoilt by bad service and terrible food. I ordered a simple fish chips and mushy peas. When it was brought out the peas were cold, hard and congealed so I asked for fresh ones. Another bowl of peas were promptly brought out, put on the table with no apologies from the server in the exact same condition as the first bowl. The fish was leaking of oil and had a very watery texture/taste and the chips were stone cold. Obviously I did not eat it!

My daughters meal was completely forgotten about. Everyone else in our party had their meals and were pretty much finished and my daughter had sat waiting for hers the whole time. We realised it had been forgotten about. When we caught a server's attention and said that she was still waiting for her meal she disappeared without a word. It was brought out within 3 minutes, the plate piping hot and the food dry and crispy and on the point of burnt. It had clearly been sat somewhere, found when asked for then put into the microwave to re heat it.

We took it inside where one of the chefs took it from me with an attitude that snatched it out of my hand and a scowl on her face! Another member of staff then refunded her bank card.

At the same time I made a complaint about my meal which I'd barely touched as it was so bad, yet instead of being offered a refund also I was given a card with a barscan code on it and was advised to use it to 'email' a manager about it.

Later on in the week i sent an email explaining how, what was supposed to be a lovely family day out for my birthday, was such a disappointment.

Our plates were left on the table with cold, half eaten food atracting flies and wasps and although there were server's floating around, noone came to clear our table. We asked someone if we could get them cleared away as we were all disappointed and didn't want to be sat looking at inedible food that as a group of 7, was not cheap! We were also getting distressed by the wasps and flies it was attracting! We were told "that was someone else's job and she would ask 'them' to come and clear it all away." After another half an hour waiting, we had all had enough and left before anyone even came out to us!!

I sent in the email, proof of our order's, table number, date, time and food order as requested, thinking I might be getting somewhere. However the manager could not find my order after she spent 4 days 'investigating' this complaint and as I payed in cash and not card, was told I would have to go back for my refund (it was only £17.99 and not really about the refund but principle of awful food and even worse service!) It ruined our day and were not even offered apologies.

It is almost impossible for me to go back for a cash refund as I am disabled and getting out of the house is extremely hard!

I did say this in the thread of emails that were going back and forth between myself and the manager. She did offer me a food voucher for our next visit but because of the experience of how bad the food was I said I probably would not want to eat there again.

With this the manager stopped emailing me. So did not resolve my frustrations. I do not recommend eating here at all. I cannot comment on the accommodation as we discussed not stay here but from experience of appalling service from every member of staff, I would not recommend a stay here either..

Go across the road to the Bickley inn. Where the food and staff are all sooo much better with standards, quality...

Honestly awful. We went for a family meal and booked in advance. We arrived at 6pm our exact time and it’s was busy but not overrun. We were a little confused with the 3 types of the same menu on the table, no table number and couldn’t find how to use the app. We queued for drinks due to the bar being understaffed but that was okay and understandable on a Saturday night. We ordered our food at 6.20pm (5 main meals with no adjustments, a starter to come as main and a sausage for the dog) we were told food would be about 40 mins which we agreed was fine and thanked them for letting us know. We waited an hour and no food had arrived (now 7.20pm) we asked a waitress and they said it shouldn’t be long. At 7.45pm (an hour and a half after ordering) a manager came over and apologised, and said there was issues in the kitchen and they had a new GM and they were doing their best. She gave us 50% refund and said food would be 15 mins. We accepted this but were very hungry at this point. At 8.10pm (25 mins later, 1 hour 50 mins total) our food still hadn’t arrived and other tables that had come in after us / ordered after us were being served. At this point we complained to a waitress who agreed this wasn’t acceptable and got another manager, she told us our food was next in line. At 8.20pm (2 hours after ordering) we received our food by this point the restaurant was near empty and multiple tables had walked out due to the same reason. The food was average, 2 of us had fish and chips, the chips were undercooked and hard in the middle, the fish was nice but batter soggy, we had a ceaser salad the chicken was dry, the croutons were soft bread and there was no cheese, a veggie sausage and mash which was fine, a standard meal but not worth £16 with basic sausages and mash, a vegan curry which again was very standard, and the portion was small for £18, and a cheesy mushroom starter which again was average and overcooked. The dog however enjoyed his sausage. We spoke to the second manager again in the end and ended up with a full refund on the meal which we are of course grateful for but it’s such a shame.

We live locally and have visited the Cott regularly over the years, it’s a beautiful location and building and it’s just so unfortunate that it’s gone so down hill with service and mainly and most importantly the food. Personally I would say around 6 years ago the food was at its peak it was almost gourmet, had a small menu and was one of our favourite places we’d go every other week, it then slowly over the years has progressively got worse, with the food almost feeling reheated / microwaved and nothing special and for the prices charged it just doesn’t work. I think that if you go in expecting a low cost quick meal then that’s fine, we are no stranger to a spoons for a pit stop (which feels the same level of food currently) but we are also frequent diners of higher cost restaurants too and again are willing to pay that if the food reflects that.

We agreed we’d be willing to wait 40 mins to an hour for food IF it was fresh and amazing when it arrived at the table.

A positive is every staff member we spoke to was lovely including the young servers. The bar was well stocked and clean and for the most part well managed even with short staff. The venue was as beautiful as ever.

We always want to support local independent restaurants but currently don’t feel we can with the Fisherman’s Cott and won’t be back for the...

We decided to stay here because I had to be in the area and we held our wedding reception at this hotel many years ago. We were here for three nights.

First the good points. It is in a beautiful location right beside the Exe; most of the staff were pleasant, particularly the breakfast servers and someone I took to be a chef who served behind the bar sometimes; and the food was good, tasty and good portions.

We did find someone we assume was a manager (he wore a Hawaiian shirt in the evening), to be rather brusque when we checked in and again when seating us for dinner.

The room was OK, large and clean, but it was very musty when we first arrived. We opened all the windows and it was fine for the rest of our stay so they had just not bothered to air it. The ensuite was generally fine but the bath panel needed repainting, there was some very amateur boxing around some pipework and very poorly applied floor sealant. It would cost almost nothing to fix these things.

In the bar area there is what looks like a white tiled entrance to the kitchen in the corner; it looks like a door has been removed. We ate near it and there was a scruffy sink, racking and bits and pieces that were very unattractive accompaniment.

Now the bad: the room was not serviced or cleaned at all while we were there. We were in the room most of the second day so we assumed they did not want to disturb us. However, after being out all day on day three and still no service we asked one of the staff if we could have a couple of clean towels and some coffee for our room. We waited…eventually we went back to enquire about our request to be told “I have been too busy”. Is it unreasonable to expect a little priority under the circumstances?

We still have a bath full of dirty towels so I will shower at the new hotel we are staying in tonight.

On check out I was told "just leave the keys there". I am not sure the manager even looked up. He certainly did not ask about our stay or I would have told him.

This is a mid-priced hotel and should do better. My local relatives say that they have it too easy because of the great location and therefore do not have to try very hard, that seems likely.

Having just checked into our next hotel to be greeted with smiles and friendly advice underlined how poor the welcome at the Fisherman's Cot was.

We were very disappointed

My advice would be come here for lunch or dinner on a sunny day, but do not stay.

Following my review "the owner" responded asking me to make contact. I sent an email as requested but two weeks later have no response. From a quick scan through other poor reviews I see that "the owner" wrote a very large number of similar requests all within the space of an hour. I wonder if they bothered to respond to anyone else. On this basis I lowered my review to one star and suggest that you...