Blue Ball Inn, Lynmouth — Restaurant in North Devon

Over Valentine's weekend, My Boyfriend and I spent a weekend at The Blue Ball Inn in Lynmouth, and If I'm being honest, I was incredibly disappointed. I had spent over £100 on the one night and booked in advance.

Firstly let's start with the room, I felt that the room was clean but poorly maintained and tired. The shower did not drain correctly, the bottles of soap and shampoo etc were refilled so often the pumps ended up gunky and every time they were used they stuck down and were incredibly difficult to use. These need to be replaced not refilled. The toilet paper roll holder was not attached to the wall correctly and therefore loose and difficult to use, the Lino was ripped next to the shower, and the handbasin plug was stuck down and hard to open. The TV not only was dated but difficult to use. This needs to be updated. My overall opinion of the room is it's a lovely room, 15 years ago. I found almost all the staff members to be slightly rude and not as polite as they could have been. They did not seem to be as efficient as they should've been. There was one gentleman who worked the evening dinner shift he was the only one I was actually impressed with. The bar, I was incredibly disappointed with this, not only did they not have the ability to make some of the most popular cocktails on the menu, for example, pornstar Martini or a classic old fashioned. For dinner, we had Garlic Mushrooms and Venison Bon Bons, and for main we had the pie and the sea bass, and for dessert, we had a chocolate torte, The only things I could actually say we enjoyed were the Pie and the Dessert the rest was simply, Meh, one thing i would say is they had a strange obsession with putting pea shoots on every starter and lots of them, and the sea bass barely tasted like anything, it was supposed o come with risotto but it was just plain rice. Although only around 5 other couples were sitting in the restaurant (a lot of empty tables and not busy at all no one at the bar either etc) the waitress gave us the incorrect starters, we had to get up from our table and find someone to send it back as she had given us Brie bites instead of Venison Bon Bons. Standard pub grub rolled in glitter. For breakfast, they did not have any hashbrowns claiming they ran out and we were some of the first ones down and they immediately ran out of ham also, this should not have been the case as they weren't busy. The live musican they had throughout the night was incredibly good! I had requested a bunch of flowers to be in the room for my partner which they charged me £20 for, and I had paid for them before I had even entered the room when I had arrived. The flowers themselves were beautiful but as I was checking out of the room, they requested I pay again, and then told the price to my partner even though they knew it was a surprise for him and he wasn't to know the price, incredibly let down by this. On booking.com it mentions they have room service, which was one of the reasons I was looking forward to going as I love room service but it turns out when I got there, they do not have any room service at all and all the snacks they had were Bert's crisps, not even salted nuts which we had requested multiple times. Very Very disappointed, Will NOT be returning and for the prices they're requesting they need to do some serious updating...

Just got back from having dinner at The Blue Ball, a really disappointing and bizarre evening.

Just want to start by saying we didn't stay at the hotel part of the inn, so I can't say what the rooms are like.

Me and my partner were out doing a walk during the day and passed The Blue Ball loved the look of it - the location is stunning, and the board outside mentioned vegan options (I'm vegan, my partner is not), so we thought we'd book a table online for later that day.

Booking was easy enough online and we arrived about half an hour early so we could have a drink outside. The drinks were added to our table bill (more on this later).We finished our drinks and went in to be shown to our table - so far so good.

We were sat down and given menus, the restaurant was empty as we were the first table for dinner. We were left a fair amount of time before the waitress returned to start taking our order. We were not offered any drinks, not even water for the table. I then asked what were the vegan options on the menu as it had no labelling for anything, vegan or vegetarian. The waitress went to ask the chef and he ticked the 2 things I could eat, 1 starter and 1 main so I ordered these. Again, no drinks were offered.

While this was happening another 2 tables were seated and offered water for the table, so I grabbed the waiter and asked if we could have some too which was then brought over. No other drinks were offered.

The starters arrived quite quickly and they were ok, I could only get bread and olives and my partner had garlic prawns which she said were tasty. We finished these and the plates were collected, the waitress didn't ask how they were or if we wanted any drinks. One of the other tables were brought drinks shortly after this and still nobody asked if we wanted any.

Mains were brought out and put down, we weren't asked if there was anything else we wanted (sauces etc, or any drinks!) so I had to go and ask for some ketchup and mayo myself. Again, food was ok but for the price I was expecting better.

We finished our meals and asked for the bill. Looking at the bill they had charged me for an alcoholic beer when I'd had an alcohol free one which was around £1 cheaper. I'm not mentioning this because they'd overcharged me a pound, if the service has been good I wouldn't have even mentioned it I was so annoyed by that point.

Surely they make their money from upselling the drinks in places like this?? We would have spent another £20 on drinks and maybe even had dessert if we'd have been treated like customers. As it was we couldn't wait to get out.

A real shame as the location is one of the best I've seen but unfortunately I couldn't recommend...

As a trained chef with extensive experience in catering and front-of-house service, I genuinely expected more from the Blue Ball Inn in Lynmouth — especially given their high review scores. That’s precisely why we booked. But honestly… what the heck went wrong?

We reserved a table for 8:30pm on the evening before my birthday, looking forward to a cosy meal to kick off our Devon getaway. Instead, what we got was a string of missteps that no professionally run kitchen or dining room should let happen.

To start, we were seated without menus — those only turned up once our drinks arrived. We’d ordered from their gin pairing menu: two Tanqueray cocktails. At this stage, we were told there would be a 30-minute wait for food, despite the restaurant being, at most, half full.

My fiancée chose the 6oz steak, and I went for the meat feast pizza. The wait wasn’t 30 minutes — it was 50. During that time, a waitress offered another drink, which then took another 10 minutes to arrive. Service was disorganised and lacked any real urgency or structure.

Then came the food, and things went from bad to worse.

My pizza was clearly a frozen product, served — unbelievably — in a takeaway box, uncut, and without even a pizza wheel or knife. As a chef, it was honestly offensive. That’s something you expect from a late-night garage, not a restaurant with glowing online ratings.

The steak arrived medium rare, despite being ordered medium well. The chips were drenched in oil — telltale signs of a fryer that’s either overdue an oil change or wasn’t up to temperature. The onion rings were the same: pale, greasy, and undercooked. These are fundamental errors no commercial kitchen should be making.

We were too hungry to send anything back, but we definitely didn’t stay for dessert.

When the bill came, things took a final nosedive — we were charged £10 more than expected for drinks we didn’t order and, bizarrely, billed for a crème brûlée we never had. The bill was corrected after we queried it, but by then the damage was done.

The venue itself lacked charm, the service was chaotic, and the kitchen appeared to be run by amateurs. Based on the glowing reviews, we came in expecting a proper dining experience. Instead, it felt like a school canteen operating on autopilot.

Whatever reputation this place had clearly isn’t being upheld anymore. A serious rethink is needed — from management to menu to staff training. We...