The Painswick

Was very fortunate enough to stay at the Painswick recently, and it was perfection. The hotel and it's grounds are absolutely beautiful, granted we were very lucky with the weather so we could make full use of the garden and it's excellent seating areas. The hotel has so many stunning features from balcony's lovely seating areas to a pool table! Our room was very nice with some really nice touches such as the coffee machine radio and complimentary homemade biscuits! The star of the show is the food, I can honestly say the meal we had is right up there with some of the best good I have ever been lucky enough to eat. The Devonshire crab on sourdough toast was divine, we shared a curried monkfish and we'll...it was an absolutely stunning dish. Breakfast was equally as delicious with such quality ingredients. The staff make this place so special all very very nice attentive and excellent at their jobs! We arrived early and got to explore Painswick itself what a stunning place this hotel is perfection thanks Painswick for having us!

What a gem ! Beautiful Cotswolds hotel with extremely friendly staff and a lovely dining room . We had been travelling around the Cotswolds all day and arrived early to have pre dinner drinks . There is a lovely bar and lounge with outside terrace with views of the nearby hills . As it was a little cooler we sat in front of the log fire having cocktails and reading our books . Leah the restaurant manageress invited us to move our booking forward which suited us . We started with chefs snacks cheese croquettes,potatoe with cod mousse and mixed charcuterie .We then had the tasting menu which I would highly recommend. We started with the a chicken terrine with asparagus a substitute for salt baked beets which the chef kindly changed . The chicken was crispy on the outside tender inside with beautiful wild garlic sauce and chicken jus just superb . We followed with cod and Romanesque sauce again delightful . Pork loin and belly pork with crackling carrot jam was the delicious main Followed by refreshing mango sorbet Pudding was a gorgeous chocolate cremo with yoghurt sorbet and sesame crisp Then petite fours and coffee All washed down with a superb Malbec Each dish was delightful leaving a lovely aftertaste truly excellent cooking Leah and her staff were delightful making a very pleasant birthday celebration . Highly recommended

Our arrival went unnoticed, thankfully we knew from a past visit where the bar was, on the first floor, so made our way there. We informed the barman of our 7.45pm dinner reservation, then sat down for drinks. Service was friendly however, during our wait to be served drinks another member of staff did come into the room, on two separate occasions, to light the fire however, made no attempt to say good evening, enquire if we were being looked after, it was like we were not there! At 8pm, as no one had come to collect us for our dinner, we went down to the restaurant to ask for our table. We were sat at a large round, wooden carved topped table, the only one in the restaurant. The initial seating for the three of us was such that we were spread about, with one chair right next to the large centre table, used by all the waiting staff to access the cutlery draw! After a few mentions of this, which sadly fell on deaf ears, we moved ourselves around the table to make it a more cosy setting arrangement, away from the 'cutlery draws' One of us had a coat, as it was a cold evening. No offer was made by any member of staff to hang the coat so we it left on a chair. We were then handed menus. When I booked (which was only a couple of weeks prior) the examples on the restaurant website were for an A La Carte menu, along with a Tasting menu. When we sat down we were informed the menus had changed and it was now a 'Sharing Plate' style menu. The menu is quite extensive, with recommendations from the staff as to how many of each we would need. The food was tasteful, but in some areas lacked thought. For example the Crab on Toast looked exquisite with the decorations, then the Fish (I believe was cod) was just plonked on the centre of the plate, with the curried sauce on either side, with nothing else. It looked uninviting, but did taste delicious. The server did ask us for comments on the menu, but never followed this up! One comment I would make is to save diners having to ask "how many dishes would they recommend per person" as well as "how many pieces were included in each portion" they might like to put this on the menu! We ordered a bottle of wine, the first glass was poured, we then topped up our own glasses for most of the evening. When the bill came and after it had paid, we were informed the wine had not been charged, but an extra cocktail had! Admittedly the waiter did remove the service charge as an apology, but this only went to reinforce our feelings about the dining experience. This was, the food was delicious however, the overall service from start to finish let the who experience down. Therefore instead of 4 stars it only deserved 3.