Bearslake Inn — Restaurant in West Devon

First, the good points. The place is picturesque with its thatched roof, the room was nicely decorated and clean.||However, the lighting in the room is inadequate – the ceiling lights are all placed in the middle, not over the sofa or the table; and the bedside lights are extremely dim. So if you wanted to read anything not on a screen, it was quite difficult. There was nowhere to place anything in the bathroom – there was space for a small table by the shower and some narrow tiling by the toilet, but we ended up placing toiletry bags on the floor in the room. No grab rail on the shower. Only one hand towel for two people provided, but two bath towels. In fact, since we were only staying one night, this wasn’t really a problem. However, my partner really feels the cold at night and there was no extra blanket provided so he requested one. I’m attaching a photo as we couldn’t believe what they had given us – it was flimsy (the member of staff who brought it did apologise for this) and had stains on it which could originally have been oil (though not greasy). I’ve travelled widely but never stayed anywhere before that couldn’t provide extra blankets when required. We wondered if it was a dog blanket. The heating wasn’t on when we went to eat around 6.30 and although it was on when we came back, it was off by 9 pm and we had no control over it. One final warning – if you are a light sleeper, I wouldn’t recommend this place – we could hear creaks whenever the people walked about above us, and when we got up just after 7 am and were talking quite normally, we suddenly got bangs on the ceiling from them so must have disturbed them. It’s a very old building, so this is understandable but we hadn’t factored this in.||And so to the restaurant, of which we had high hopes. We both ordered the chicken in a sauce (£22) but vegetables came extra (£6 for broccoli and £5 for smoky mash). Although the place wasn’t full, we waited 45 minutes. When it arrived, I couldn’t finish mine as there was something odd about it and it wasn’t until we got back to the room that I realised the chicken was definitely processed – it was cut in perfectly symmetrical slices as if out of a tin, the consistency was completely smooth and it hadn’t tasted like fresh chicken. Not only that, but the mash also appeared to have been turned out of a small pudding bowl shape and microwaved – it too was of an unnatural smoothness. For £33 excluding drinks (luckily we didn’t order alcohol), this really was a rip-off. ||We were on the way back from Cornwall, having stayed a night en route and a night down there. The other two accommodations were more reasonably priced and much...

See associated google review for general overview. We stayed here for one night and booked 4 rooms at a total cost of almost £800. No toiletries were provided in any of the rooms so I raised this with the manager on our way out for the evening. When we returned, toiletries had only be placed in my room and not the others. The refreshments had not been fully replenished in my Mum's room (a bottle of water was open and half finished). My youngest daughter could not sleep in our room because it was populated by so many spiders and cobwebs; she had to sleep on the floor of my Mums rooms. I raised this with the Manager on our way out for the evening and he assured me he would deal with it. I had to remove another 8 spiders just from the alcove where my other daughter's bed was when we returned. I appreciate this is an old historic building, but that many spiders can only take residence if the space hasn't been cleaned for at least several days. Certainly not just before new customers. The caulking in our bathroom had mould on it and the shower controls came off in my hand and I couldn't control the temperature of the shower. The toilet sounded like it was dying when flushed. My sister also has a bad experience in her room. The bed was so damp she had to sleep in it fully clothed. Her room smelt of mould and her curtains were mouldy. We raised all these issues calmly and politely with the owner the following morning. As expected (from reading negative google reviews) she was defensive and combative, and although saying sorry was clearly unapologetic. She repeatedly referred to their many positive reviews and the historic nature of the building, but did nothing to make us feel better about our experience. She questioned our account of the rooms, and when we invited her to go and inspect them together right then, she refused. When we left in disgust the owner locked the door behind us and left my kids and their grandma in the car park in the rain with their luggage (while I went to pick up my car). Overall, the building is tired and poorly maintained, the rooms we stayed in were dirty, mouldy and a health risk, and the owner has very little customer service skills and should probably not be front of house. Clearly many customers have a positive experience, but I suspect in low season in particular, experience is not consistent, and when it falls short, feedback is not received and acted on appropriately. Will not...

The inn is really beautiful but unfortunately our stay was ruined by a several bad experiences. We asked for a small portion of food (no request for a reduced price just less food as we knew my partner would not finish and don't want to waste food) and we're told no, my food came which was a vegan option and had about 3 stems of broccoli, small leeks and 3 tiny mouthfuls of cauliflower, with a side of potatoes, when you are paying fine dining prices for food you expect more effort on the alternative than just the vegetable sides put on a plate without the meat.

When we were done with the meal, unsurprisingly my partner had not finished half of her duck so we asked to have it boxed up they said they couldn't do that, we offered to box it if they brought a box, they said they don't have any boxes, but we later found out that they do takeaways so obviously they do.

We asked if the Inn was part of a chain or owned by someone and the waiter offered for us to speak to the owner. We didn't bring them over like another review states. When we spoke to the owner all we wanted to do was pass on feedback about particularly the vegan option (many places don't have a lot of experience catering for vegans so knowing they need more than a handful of greens could improve the option significantly) unfortunately the owner shut down the conversation telling us about the taster menu on the website (nothing on the menu mentions the portion size). At know point did we ask or imply a desire for a discount we just expressed our concerns and unfortunately the conversation got more hostile because the owner never considered...