To be fair, I usually stay at B&B's or Inn, which I love.
Due to circumstances, we opted for this small hotel instead, to broaden the horizon etc.

It has a sort of Aussie feeling, located in the dunes, no sea view.
If you drive up from Romney/Dungeness/Hythe, you pass one of the most depressing landscapes in the UK; any location scout looking for concentration camp background?

The hotel is small, all ground level with a sea theme throughout.
Staff is very friendly and helpful, including the kitchen staff but they are also very harried, unfortunately for them. I suspect too high a workload, it shows, it affects the athmosphere.

The rooms are excellent, perhaps providing a hair dryer would be a good addition.

Had a small lunch that was well presented but average, Breakfast was too, but a table for two is far too cluttered and impractical. The traditional English is fine, while the Haddock and poached egg is excellent but a disappointingly small portion. A small square in a huge soup dish, lol.

Not too fond of toddlers in a dining area, especially when the acoustics don't help either.

All in all not bad, but the website and raving reviews made that I expected more. And I do get more value for the amount spent, elsewhere.

Oh, there was an unscheduled firealarm on Sunday morning but the staff handled that very well and apologized profusely.

My wife and I spent a very disappointing 6-8 November weekend at The Place at the Beach. We booked our weekend stay after viewing the hotel’s web site. As it turned out, the gap between the web site’s pretensions and our experience was huge.

According to the web site, the Place at the Beach is “a hotel alongside the beach”, and “one minute’s walk from…wonderful beaches”. This isn’t true. The hotel is situated across the road from a large park with adjacent sand dunes. It took us about fifteen minutes to walk through the car park and the park itself, and then up and over the dunes to the beach. The hotel’s web site also boasts that it was the Sunday Times’s “Rural Hotel of 2009”. After our experience, I checked on the internet and it’s true that a 16 February 2009 Sunday Times feature story named The Place at the Beach as its Best Rural Hotel. However, that was under the hotel’s previous owners, the current owners having bought the hotel in August, 2009.

According to the web site, the restaurant is run by “a classically trained chef”. At dinner on our first night, we waited nearly a half hour for our food to be served, despite there being only six other customers in the restaurant. When our food arrived, one dish was very undercooked, so we asked that it be cooked some more. Our server took it back to the kitchen but returned a few moments later, informing us the chef told her that this was the way it was meant to be cooked and that it didn’t look as rare under the kitchen lighting as it did under the restaurant lighting. We asked again that it be cooked a bit more. About twenty minutes passed before it was brought back, still too rare, and this time as hard as a rock (perhaps having been zapped in the microwave?). In any case, it was inedible.

Fast forward to Sunday morning breakfast when both my wife and I ordered eggs with mushrooms, tomatoes, and brown toast. Apologising, the waitress and restaurant manager explained that we could have eggs, but no mushrooms, tomatoes, or brown bread, as none of those items had been available that morning at the corner shop! The web site description of the restaurant refers to its “locally-sourced food”. It makes no reference to the corner shop!

The restaurant managers and some of the servers did an admirable job of trying to cover up for the inadequacies of the kitchen and the hotel’s general management: “We’ve only been going for three months under the present owners”; “We’re launching a new menu tonight (though the brochure in our bedroom indicated the menu had begun two weeks earlier)”; “We’re about to start training our staff”; and “We’re going to be refinishing the floors and replacing all of the tables and chairs”. Another staff member, Lisa, who worked at reception, did a very professional job, greeting us warmly, and providing us with copies of walking tours in the area. Also on the positive side, our room was clean and quiet, and large enough for the bed, though not a chair.

What struck us most was that the owners don’t seem to know what customers they’re aiming to attract. According to the hotel's “How to find us” web page, the easiest way to get there is by taking a private plane or helicopter to nearby Lydd airport. That suggests an appeal to very wealthy customers. Yet, a staff member told us that a high proportion of customers come to dinner or stay over because they’re drawn to events at the Pontin’s Holiday Park a half-mile down the road.

During the first months in the life of a small hotel/restaurant, you’d expect to see hands-on ownership, ensuring cohesion between the hotel, the restaurant front-of-house, and the kitchen. During our visit, no-one appeared to have authority to get things done outside of their own area. The brochure in our room included a message from Tudor Hopkins, one of the owners, asking customers to call him on his mobile with any questions or comments. Taking him at his word, we phoned his number and left a message, saying that we’d like to tell him about our experience of his hotel and restaurant. Instead of phoning us back, he sent us a text asking, “Who is this?” Later, we were told by staff that he was away for all of the next week. Hopefully, while he was away, for the sake of some of his conscientious staff, he’ll have figured out what to do with this place, starting with the kitchen.

As I prepared to post this review, I noticed another one, dated 4 September, 2009, making many of the same points I’ve made here. So, two months on the hotel/restaurant continues to offer much the same as it did two days after opening!

Stayed for 3 nights while working nearby. A small and friendly place with an excellent restaurant that has a good menu. The room I stayed in was comfortable and quiet. The staff were attentive and pleasant.