Classic...with a touch of Jurassic
WAKING up in a Cornish hotel with sunshine streaming through the window is a rare pleasure. As is walking out into a lush, Jurassicstyle valley, teeming with vast tree ferns, prehistoric-looking gunnera with leaves as big as umbrellas, cascading camellias, magnificent magnolias and rhododendrons. Peacock screeches increase the exoticism, red pillar boxes the surreal. Below, a secluded beach beckons.
This real-life nine-acre paradise forms the grounds of Hotel Meudon, near Falmouth. Cornwall is known for its subtropical gardens, but a hotel set in the midst of one is very unusual.
The garden and direct access to secluded Bream Cove are splendid. Hikers and nature-lovers will adore the proximity to the South West Coast Path and Helford estuary. For those wanting more ‘life’, perky Falmouth is just down the road.
Outside, the hotel architecture is a mash-up. Main reception rooms are housed in a red-brick castellated manor, mostly 19th Century and once inhabited by the Foxes, creators of Trebah and Glendurgan gardens. The ‘Bridge’ links this to rooms in the indubitably less attractive 1970s extension, but a recent refurbishment has given all interiors a modish mid-century tone with Ercol and retro furniture; green, grey and mustard tones; accent cushions and cocktail chairs.
The parquet-floored drawing room is light and inviting while jazz-clubby Freddie’s Bar is so seductively dark at 6pm that, after cracking cocktails, we almost forget to have dinner. Meudon has chutzpah, displaying menus from iconic eating places including El Bulli, but its own fare is great.
A short menu proffers fresh, mainly local bounty under the auspices of Darren Kerley, formerly at Soho’s Bob Bob Ricard. Scallops and burrata salad starters are top-dollar, courgette linguine with almond and basil superb. Gilthead bream with fennel, a Cornish cheese trolley and strawberry souffle are all lip-smacking. Pewsey Vale Eden Valley Riesling is liquid summer. Everything is served by enthusiastic staff in an orangery-style room with a grapevine, cool retro lights and eyepopping vistas.
Breakfast the next day is plentiful: the buffet has cinnamony granola and fine hot dishes feature tasty Tregida smoked kippers and the Full Meudon.
We then walk nine miles of glorious coastline, so think we deserve Meudon’s substantial and scrumptious afternoon tea, after which small plates (mackerel houmous, skinny fries) are plenty for supper. There are 29 bedrooms, all 1960sstyle, most with garden views. (There’s also a two-bed cottage.) Capacious beds have Vispring mattresses. Organic toiletries by Bloom Remedies smell divine. Tea and coffee are provided but if you’re an aficionado of the latter, eschew it and order an espresso. Our garden-view room with balcony is perfect for us and the whippet. Inside, a pair of seaweed-green boucle mid-century armchairs, jaunty yellow and grey cushions and a striped Welsh blanket are nice touches. The bijou bathroom, almost entirely white, includes a rain shower over a tempting bath, which will have to wait. Flopping into the expansively comfy bed, I drift off. Is it all a dream?
B&B based on two sharing from £119 a room (meudon.co.uk).