Lugger Hotel

The maidens (my wife and an equally beautiful friend of ours) and I left town at half three on a Friday afternoon and headed towards the sunset and the Lugger Hotel in Cornwall. We did get lost once, not having a map, a sense of direction or a sane person in the car. For clarity’s sake, stay on the road that claims to be the M5 all the way to the A390, and then turn off towards St Austell; do not be distracted by A30s or A38s – they are false gods.

As always, we were late for dinner. The chef at the Lugger Hotel hangs up his hat at a fashionably early 9pm, but he knew we were coming, and had agreed to hold on. The three of us were gently ushered to a corner table overlooking the tiny harbour, and given menus and suggestions. The restaurant is all cool whites and creams, dark-oak beams, honey-hued wooden floors, terracotta tiles and elegant rattan chairs. It made quite a backdrop for the girls. The same minimalist elements have been used throughout the hotel, mixed with a more relaxed, traditional country feel; in a lovely warm library next to the restaurant, books and videos can be browsed by the fireside, over a decent Bloody Mary.

The bar is really part of the restaurant and, therefore, not somewhere to hang out. The restaurant itself would be equally at home in Sydney or Long Island. The food is more than good, the fish spectacular, and the helpful staff a mix of city chic and French au pair. My only complaint would be that the maidens were not on a diet, so when they’d eaten their dinners, they then ate mine, ordered another main course, ate that, and still looked at me expectantly.

Our rooms were in a separate building just behind the hotel, overlooking the village and the sea. (Guests in the main building have harbour and sea views, too.) We took adjacent Deluxe and Classic rooms, sampling the top and bottom end of the scale. They were both lovely, simple and elegant: Armani by the sea.

The beds are, if anything, oversized for the rooms, giving a lovely cosy feeling. The Italian cotton sheets and voluptuous pillows get nine out of ten; I would gladly have spent the whole weekend in bed, if I had been allowed to. Being rather dissolute, we missed the 10am deadline for the Full Monty in bed, but hotel rules were bent once again, and we were delivered a wonderful compromise that qualified as an early lunch. Guilt finally set in when I realised that the chambermaids had patiently waited outside for hours, without a word.

Portloe is a working fishing village, replete with lobster pots and nets drying in the wind. It seems to have forced its way into a crack in the coastline, and clings to the rocks like a limpet. It is truly tiny, the hotel sharing the beach with four or five fishing boats and their boatyard. Whitewashed slate-roofed cottages nestle into the hillsides behind the harbour, sheltering from the Atlantic breeze and crashing waves. It is very pretty, very Cornish.

The only pub, the Ship Inn is cosy and fun, and its kitchen serves great pub food. The natives seemed friendly: a mixture of villagers and walkers down from the wilds above. The clifftops offer lovely walks and drama-filled views over the ocean, and the countryside approaching the coast is sublime, with the village of Veryan, a few miles away, a dead ringer for Rivendell. We were particularly taken by a building that looked so like a witch’s house, with bulbous walls and a fat, squashy look, that we couldn’t help chuckling when we saw it.

The Lugger is perfect for brand-new affairs, getting away from the children, and breaking up. You won’t want to do much except soak up the atmosphere. This is a place where you can contemplate the past and the future undisturbed, not just because you’ll find your mobile won’t work, but also because the Lugger does what it does so damn so well.