“Lovely evening meal”

We were staying for a few nights on the lovely Hambleton peninsula and thought we should try an evening meal at the 'local'! We had the option of eating in the bar or restaurant area - there were plenty of people in both - we chose the restaurant for a more intimate experience. Service was great … more

We were staying for a few nights on the lovely Hambleton peninsula and thought we should try an evening meal at the 'local'! We had the option of eating in the bar or restaurant area - there were plenty of people in both - we chose the restaurant for a more intimate experience. Service was great and so was the food and drink. Plenty of choice at fair prices. I was pleased to see that gratuities were left to the discretion of the customer - I much prefer this to the automatically added 'service charge' which seems to be increasing in popularity. Thanks to all the staff for a good evening, we hope to return soon!

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“Very Good stay for us, but pick your room carefully.”

Have recently returned from a three-night break at the Finches Arms Hotel and have to say our experience seems to have been a lot better than some historical ones. However, I do believe The Finches Arms has undergone a bit of a makeover a couple of years ago when the downstairs bar and restaurant a… more

Have recently returned from a three-night break at the Finches Arms Hotel and have to say our experience seems to have been a lot better than some historical ones. However, I do believe The Finches Arms has undergone a bit of a makeover a couple of years ago when the downstairs bar and restaurant and upstairs rooms underwent a full makeover and the emphasis is now towards a hotel with restaurant rather than a pub, with a few rooms, which I believe it was before. We had one of the slightly more expensive north facing rooms that give a view of Rutland Water and couldn’t really fault it. Large comfortable bed, modern décor and very modern bathroom with walk in shower unit with excellent rain forest shower head and all the usual bits you would expect except for perhaps a safe. There is no aircon, and although a fan is provided it is for this reason that I say use consideration when picking your room. The advantage of the north facing rooms is that they hardly get the sun except for a short period in the morning (which needs to be a consideration as we’ve had three heat waves this year already) and do not get as warm as some of the others. They also have larger windows that open fully, compared to some of the other rooms, such as those described on the hotel web site as “cosy”. One of these is room 10, the twin room which also comes with a view of the bins. The servicing of the room was excellent, and we found the service levels throughout Finches to be exceptionally good. As also was the food both at breakfast and in the restaurant in the evening. And if the sun is out, allowing you to use the very good courtyard garden outback, there was a couple of very well kept real ales on the bar as well.

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“Just felt as though they had better things to do than serve us”

A group of us walked the Rutland Peninsula then went to The Finch's Arms for a drink. Our welcome was less than enthusiastic. While 6 of us stood at the bar, a tall woman dressed all in black came behind the bar twice but totally ignored us. No greeting, no "we'll be with you in a minute", just com… more

A group of us walked the Rutland Peninsula then went to The Finch's Arms for a drink. Our welcome was less than enthusiastic. While 6 of us stood at the bar, a tall woman dressed all in black came behind the bar twice but totally ignored us. No greeting, no "we'll be with you in a minute", just completely ignored us. Another woman came behind the bar, then walked out, again not a word was said. She came back a couple of minutes later and said "what can I get you" in a tone that just said that she had better things to do and serving us was a bind! We ordered our drinks and went to sit in the garden. As we moved through the restaurant, it wasn't clear how to get to the garden (it's through a fire exit) so I asked the woman in black who looked and me, said "through the door" and walked off. It was only because someone else went out I could see she meant the fire exit. So glad we decided not to eat here. It would have obviously been too much trouble for them. I know its a very affluent area but our money is as good as anyone else's and we're very well behaved! We ate at The Admiral Hornblower in Oakham which warm, friendly and does amazing food (see my review for them). Thoroughly recommend there instead.

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“It had potential but just fell a bit short”

We had visited for lunch drinks and decided to give a go for dinner, having looked at the menu, so we booked for Saturday evening. I opted for the Chicken supreme with a curry veloute, which was neatly presented but lacked flavour and only a trickle of sauce. My husband had the steak with a pepperc… more

We had visited for lunch drinks and decided to give a go for dinner, having looked at the menu, so we booked for Saturday evening. I opted for the Chicken supreme with a curry veloute, which was neatly presented but lacked flavour and only a trickle of sauce. My husband had the steak with a peppercorn sauce which was super salty and arrived when he had half eaten his steak. The sauce was inedible and obviously wasn’t tasted before serving. Just a bit underwhelming overall.

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