please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Cosy enough place and was surprisingly cheaper for drinks than I thought it would be.
Staff a little in your face with the yes sir no sir thing. But certainly worth a stop for a quick one if doing a pub crawl of Lyme.
7/10
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About all you can expect of a hotel bar on a main street (one can imagine the coaches rolling up in days of yore) and the mess that is Oxford's Mitre should take note. Mind you, it's nothing scintillating and a preponderance of holidaying senior citizens means it is never going to rival Hackney's Pembury Tavern for hipsterism. Competent and worth stopping off at.
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The bar area is a little formal although the interior is quite nice an cosy. My sole purchase in here was a pint of ale from the local Town Mill brewery which was blood temperature and flat. If that's the best they can do then I definitely won't be going back.
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The trouble with putting the cask ales through a python is that after the first pint of the day, the rest will then be far too cool. The ale comes straight out of the cellar which is directly below the bar here (nearly saw the barman fall through the open flaps). using a python is just an excuse for poor bar / cellar management. Since the beer here is always too warm, I suspect the cekllar cooling is not working. Some money needs to be spent on fixing it.
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This is a nice hotel bar. Bright, clean and the staff are good. I accept the warm beer criticism. They need to investigate installing an Ale Python Cooling System which stops the beer warming up in the line. The first pint out, currently, is ghastly.
Maybe dim the lights a little and abolish the fire screen that hides a little treasure! They also welcome dogs which is a big plus ~ especially where food is served. Thank you!
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This place has a certain worn gentility about it, the kind of place where you expect to find Hercule Poirot exchanging case notes with Miss Marple over tea and muffin.The staff make every effort to give top hole sevice.I came here in search of the new Town Mill Brewery Cobb bitter,my teeth were still chattering from the ice encrusted ale served at the crappy Harbour Inn,yes , you have guessed it ! The ale was warmer than Brown Windsor soup! So not to offend the pleasant staff I read the Daily Telegraph for a short while and slipped the near boiling beer onto the window sill and made good my escape.
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Lovely building, and interior, in a prime spot on Lyme�s high street. It�s a shame then that it�s a bit disorganised � often not enough staff and beers off. But worth a stop on a Lyme crawl.
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The hotel has two adjacent buildings, which have a white exterior, with black painted stone work and a large two story oriel window
The interior of the bar area alone is open plan, with wood panel, partitions and black beams and a couple of dining areas in olive and green. A deer head can be found in the bar, along with brass kettles and other ephemera. There are lots of old pictures of Lyme and when they used the hotel in the making of Frech Lt's Woman. Service was fine and the clientele small and mixed. Music was subdued.
Beer; tap tosh, with Butcombe Blonde (decent) and Oteer Bitter and Amber on handpull.
I was more than happy here and would pop in again
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Butcombe beer was top notch and a comfortable place to drink it, although it is of course more a hotel bar than a pub. If you want the cut and thrust of a pub try The Volunteer up the road.
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A follow up to my last review - just spent a long weekend here. Overall impression was very good indeed and can't see why it's only got two AA stars. The beer (Brunel) is still excellent and our room was first class. All the staff were very efficient, very friendly and went out of their way to make our stay enjoyable. The hotel restaurant menu changes daily and was excellent quality and value for money. We ate in the bar on arrival and my only complaint for the whole stay was that the seafood platter to share at �32 was horrendously overpriced - so we won't have that when we return for another break later in the year!
BobOs - 15 Mar 2009 17:08 |
Called in for a swift pint yesterday - Butcombe Brunel - which was excellent and well kept. Good atmosphere and a friendly welcome with efficient staff. The menus (bar menu and restaurant menu) are extensive, featuring locally-caught seafood, and is quite reasonably priced. We were shown around some rooms by the receptionist, as well as some of the other hotel facilities (indoor swimming pool, gym, snooker room, etc) and have booked for a short break in the Spring on the strength of it.
BobOs - 18 Jan 2009 12:01 |
The German words on the outside are the motto of the Prince of Wales.
"Ich dien" which means "I Serve" Something that some of the staff here could do well to adopt.
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We stayed at the hotel so made good use of the bar, staff friendly did not eat there, always a good pint, for a hotel bar it had rather a nice more pubby feel to it, and nice old woodwork etc..
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The beer was well kept and the bar staff very pleasant and efficient. We ate in the bar - there's a separate menu for the restaurant - very reasonable prices and lovely food which arrived promptly. There is a hotel bar feel to it but it's not 'antiseptic' as hotel bars can be. Nice and woody and a good old building.
chick - 26 Jun 2008 14:16 |
Fawlty Towers comes to Lyme Regis.
Went here with some friends for something to eat, what a joke.
We ordered our meals at the bar, but when the food arrived some time later it was obvious that we were being given someone elses food,not least because the waiter had 4 meals and there were only 3 of us. Nevertheless the waiter (foreign with limited English)insisted it was for us and even suggested that we had misread the menu, so we took the food anyway, and very nice it was too.
Halfway through our meals another waiter (foreign with limited English) came along with the meals we had actually ordered and insisted that we have them. He even wanted to take away the meals we had started to eat, but eventually he left us alone.
When we had finished, the first waiter returned and accused us of tricking him and said that because the meals we had eaten cost more than the meals we had paid for, we would have to pay the difference L.O.L.
He even threatened to call the police and accused us of stealing.
So we left with him running down the road after us asking for the money.
What a joke.
Pity really, I used to go to this bar last summer quite a lot as it was the best bar in town by far.
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Has more of a 'bar open to the public in a hotel' feel to it than a traditional pub but was pleasant enough. I saw a famous person in here - the woman who played Oz's wife in the 80s series Auf Wiederhesen, Pet! Perhaps that explains the German phrases on the front of the building.
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