Vegetarian Hall of Shame: Hotel Tresanton, St. Mawes, Cornwall

Posted on 2008/07/27 11:49:16 (July 2008).

As a vegetarian I'm often bitterly disappointed with the food I get fobbed off with in restaurants. Up until now I've tended to just accept this, but given that I am a paying customer I no longer see why I should.

And so I have started the vegetarian hall of shame where I'm going to publicly broadcast restaurants which have done particularly badly for vegetarian food.

The first in this series, and perhaps one of the worst culprits to date, is the Hotel Tresanton in St. Mawes.

We went there on the first night of a week's break in Cornwall at the end of last month, and the experience rather marred the rest of the holiday.

Admittedly, it is in a lovely spot - with great sea views - albeit hard to appreciate given the weather on the day in question - but still it was very atmopheric.

The hotel has quite a reputation in the area for fine dining, and I believe my fellow non-vegetarian diners all enjoyed their meals, but it appeared it was the sort of place for which vegetarian dishes are very much an afterthought.

Whilst my starter (asparagus soup) and dessert (a West country cheese plate) were both adequate, I couldn't contain my irritation at how downright awful my main course was. In another venue I might have just accepted it, but given the reputation of this place - and moreover the prices here (£43 for three courses, which I am not ashamed to admit I consider to be expensive) I really just did not feel it was acceptable.

Everyone else's main course looked appetising and had clearly had some care taken over them - they had a whole range of interesting ingredients, many of them with interesting vegetable accompaniments such as grilled artichoke, steamed pak choi and sautéed broad beans. Overall the non-vegetarian dishes looked well cooked and thoughtfully assembled.

I, on the other hand, was utterly disappointed. There was only one vegetarian dish on the menu - whch I wouldn't have minded, as long as it is actually any good - but even before ordering I had a suspicion it was going to be a bit underwhelming considering the price. I did ask the waiter if they could make any alternatives, fearing it might not be worth the money, but they told me their special had already sold out, and they wouldn't make anything off the menu.

So, I somewhat unwillingly ordered the "gnocchi with tomato sauce".

It was appallingly bland. They had actually attempted to make the gnocchi themselves, rather than just get ready made ones out of a packet, which would have been commendable were they not actually worse than any I had ever had out of a packet. They were stodgy, starchy, and glutinous, and appeared to have been fried (after, or perhaps instead of) boiling, and were actually slightly burnt in places. As for the "sauce" if I can call it that, was one of the worst tomato sauces I have ever had. It appeared to just be a spoonful of tinned tomatoes that had been reduced until they were dry, and that was it - no other discernible ingredients whatsoever. Oh, and because this was a "gourmet restaurant", they'd added a slice of a fittingly bland and uninteresting goat's cheese to the pitiful ensemble. It was just terrible.

I was utterly maddened at the fact I'd been charged somewhere in the region of £20 for that.

Unusually for me, I did actually complain - both to our waiter and to the lady I assumed to be the manageress, but neither of them seemed to be prepared to do anything about it. The manageress even said "yes, we're not very strong on vegetarian dishes" - as though, like the weather, this was just an unfortunate set of circumstances over which she had no control. She even had the nerve to ask me if I'd ever had gnocchi before, as though somehow it was my own ignorance that was at fault.

Perhaps I just caught them on a bad night, but regardless of that, charging £20 for a dish which was tasteless, had no care or attention put into making it, and cannot have cost more than £1 for the ingredients, is completely unacceptable. I made my feelings very clear to them and they barely apologized, and didn't even consider offering any kind of refund or compensation whatsoever.

Update 13th August 2008: Since posting an abridged version of this review on Tripadvisor, I was contacted by the general manager at the Tresanton who actually seemed very nice, and not only profusely apologised, but also offered a refund / free meal. I asked that they give the money to charity instead. Apparently they have got a new sous chef who specialises in pasta, and so hopefully my experience may well be an isolated one.

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