INSIDE WORLD’S BEST B&B... AND IT’S IN TORQUAY
Following its victory in TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice awards, CHRISSY HARRIS checks into The 25 Boutique B&B to see if it justifies the hype
CHAMPAGNE on arrival, plump cushions on an immaculately made bed and luxurious cosmetics in the sparkling bathroom – this is the sort of fivestar treatment dished out by the best hotels in the world.
And yet here I am in a very unassuming-looking, six-bedroom B&B on a busy main road in Torquay, Devon.
But while it may be the home town of Basil, Manuel et al, you can banish all thoughts of Fawlty Towers when you come to The 25.
This fabulous little place in the heart of the English Riviera has just been named the world’s best in the TripAdvisor’s Travellers Choice Awards.
I got as far as reception before I realised why. Owners Julian and Andy Banner-Price are the perfect hosts and have worked incredibly hard to make this stylish place stand out from the millions of B&Bs across the world.
Their attention to detail and the care they show towards their guests is remarkable. “Basil Fawlty would have hated it here!” says Julian, laughing. “We actually like the people who come and stay with us and we try to do as much as we can to make their trip enjoyable.
“I like to think we’re helping people to move on from that Fawlty Towers pastiche. That was 40 years ago, but it’s still very much in people’s minds. We’re interested in showing just how much Torquay has changed. It’s a fantastic place to be.”
With that, Andy brings me a glass of bubbly and one of his homemade chocolate cookies. (There will be another one on the bedside table in my room for later, he adds, under the little note marked “Andy’s treat of the day”.)
We sit across by the pretend roaring fire in the cosy lounge, looking out over the busy main road. There might not be sea views but who cares? That’s not what people come here for.
“We have thought through the whole guest experience,” says Julian 45, who took on this place with Andy four years ago when it was a fairly ordinary 10-bed B&B. “It was basically 50 shades of cream,” he says. “We wanted to make it special. There are basically 30 B&Bs in this road alone and more across Torquay. We wanted to be offering something a little bit different.”
They have certainly succeeded. Each of the six-individually styled bedrooms makes you gasp on entry. A sunglass-wearing plastic zebra (called Frank) peers out from the wall of one room, which is floor-to-ceiling black, white striped with splashes of yellow.
A giant orange flower makes up a feature wall in another bedroom and there is a gloriously sparkly purple glitter effect above the bed in another.
Every room has been accessorised to perfection – there are
even colour co-ordinated coffee machines.
I relax on the bed in the Broadsands room (each room is named after a local beach) worrying slightly about crushing the cushion arrangement.
“One guest told me that I plump cushions with the precision of a heart surgeon,” says Andy, quickly making them immaculate for me again.
“We do all the cleaning here ourselves,” he adds. “We don’t have any staff – it is just us, but we like it that way – we have pretty high standards.
“And I just can’t bear dust,” says Julian. “Look,” he says, pointing to a completely dust-free black glass table. “That won’t do, I’ll have to go over that again.”
I walk around each of the rooms, trying to spot, something, anything that’s out of place, but there is nothing. All the spoons in the teacups are facing the same way and the biscuits neatly stacked. Even the switches on the plug sockets are all in line. It’s perfect in here.
As I lounge about on the bed, I spot a little bottle of pillow mist, ready to spritz. On the other bedside table sits a tube of lip balm. It’s like they know me – I always keep lip balm by my bed.
“We try to think of the smallest details,” says Andy, 46. “I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction when people tell me that they’ve just spent their best birthday ever here, or they had a wonderful anniversary with us.”
The couple are used to the hospitality trade. They used to run a Grade-II-listed country house in north Wales with 15 acres of land, but it was hard work catering for so many guests.
They moved to Torquay for a
change of lifestyle and a quieter life – although they might have to wait a while for that to happen now.
During my brief stay, the phone was constantly ringing with enquiries from people all keen to stay in the world’s top guesthouse. In one day, they had 60 bookings.
“It’s been like living in a dream,” says Julian, standing by a rainbowcoloured sculpture of a naked man (the hall lamp).
“We’ve barely had a second to ourselves. It’s been nuts! In less than four years, we’ve gone from not even existing to being number one in the world. Even saying it sounds weird.”
Well, take it from this very relaxed guest, this place is definitely deserving of its world-class status.