St Petroc's Bistro

Alex Lake (9 August 2008)

We were a group of four adults and two children and found that the service was excellent and the food pretty faultless. Mains of sea bream had superb texture and delicate flavour, the whole lemon sole was fleshy and delicious, ling special was in a rather rich buttery source and very filling, perhaps a touch ‘rustic’ and the haddock was superb. The wine list very good indeed, with plenty of choice around £20 – I would particularly recommend the Picpoul de Pinet. We were fairly full by dessert time but managed to squeeze in a raspberry parfait and a vanilla ice-cream, which were both very good. The bill came to £180 with two bottles of wine, coffee and the 10% service charge. We highly recommend this place and will go again.

Fiona (3 April 2007)

Having just returned from a week's holiday in Cornwall, I felt obliged to give some feedback on this establishment, having eaten there last week with my husband and 3-year old son.

My hubby and I have been to Mr Stein's various establishments in Padstow over the years and have thoroughly enjoyed them all (including a previous visit to St Petroc's), however we were very disappointed this time. I've never been a great fish eater but over the years, through part-bravery and partly watching Rick's TV shows, I've come to like certain fish types, and was very keen to have fish at such a renowned venue.

My son's meal, incidentally, was lovely. He's a great fish eater (thank God, makes up for the lack of vegetables!), and had a lovely piece of grilled cod with fries. My dish, however, was pretty poor. I ordered the monkfish tail with salsa and olive mash. The tail itself was tiny, barely any flesh on it and the olive mash was cold and didn't taste particularly fresh. As our son was starting to get bored, I didn't feel we had the time to send it back and get something else. I also didn't realise just how small the tail was until I saw them for sale in a local supermarket - twice the size! The only redeeming feature of the dish was the very tasty salsa that was on the monkfish, presumably to bulk it out! We were also on the early dinner slot (7pm) so it wasn't as if this could have been the last piece of tail in the kitchens.

My husband is, unlike me, a very keen fish eater and he had the medley of fish which he said was very tasty but not much of it - again. There was no accompanying veggies or potato/carbs, so essentially we were paying £17-18 for fish soup!

All in all, I expected a much better presented, bigger and fresher dish from one of Mr Stein's restaurants, and considering the prices, we feel pretty cheated. I had a fantastic steak meal in a local pub (in Boscastle) the following night for half the price which was far superior to the previous evening's effort.

I would hope this was a one-off and the vast majority of customers will be very satisfied with their food, but I doubt we'll return again sadly. I also don't feel I can complain to the establishment now as they probably wouldn't believe me!

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