Smith’s Brasserie at Bovey Castle

Very expensive for what was on offer. Prawn salad was just lots of lettuce. Burgers rather solid and dry.

Waiting staff excellent, very attentive, excellent food.

We decided to lunch at Bovey Castle with friends, as a memorable footnote to an extraordinary long weekend in Devon and we were not disappointed. Choosing the Brasserie over the more formal Great Western was the first correct decision: the menu in Smith's was varied and exciting with the promise of fine locally sourced ingredients apparently honoured. All dishes were enjoyed with my fish pie being very traditional and enjoyable with decent chunks of fresh fish.
The staff were excellent with the right balance of friendliness and efficiency; they made us feel very welcome.

The whole evening was fantastic...food service and cost ..we will be booking again very shortly

Food varied, tasty and well presented. The evening was enhanced by Sylvie, our Polish waitress who puts everything into her job with an infectious charm. She was at Bovey last year as well.

The food service and whole experience was fantastic, it was a late Valentines treat for my partner and we were both very impressed. The scotch egg was great as was the NZ Sauvignon which we had to accompany it, the only one tiny thing we could pick fault with was the size of the lamb wellington. The slice was very large but the dish itself was excellent, a tiny fault with an otherwise amazing meal and day.

Lovely food. Service was very friendly however a little slow.

Excellent server very obliging sadly the food was not good, expensive and very average... at best I would only eat a quick lunch here as we use the pool and grounds frequently but certainly not dinner.

The menu looked lovely, we arrived on a Friday at 2pm so the restaurant was not overly busy and were greeted and seated politely. Unfortunately from that point on the experience was very poor. One male server was very abrupt although both female staff were nice there was no one person looking after us and I think they all thought the other was so we were left some time before a drinks order was taken and later our food order. It then took over half an hour for our starters to arrive, the waitress did notice we hadn't had anything at that point and they arrived about 5 minutes later. It was disappointingly simple although tasty. Our mains then also took over half an hour to arrive and when they did both dishes were mostly cold, my husbands pastrami was thick, chewy beef and the toasted sandwich was cold, my cod was warm but the cauliflower aloo gobi was again cold. No table check so it was at least 20 minutes before anyone came back to our table. Instantly we were offered our meals free of charge and we were told we would only have to pay for our drinks and desserts that we had plenty of room left for as we hadn't eaten much else!
In all it took nearly 2 hours to have the 3 courses which would not have been an issue if they were busy but we felt we were just ignored and forgotten. We have been here before for afternoon and tea and it was amazing which is why we came back, sadly we won't be rushing to try them again. The staff on arrival were lovely and welcoming and at least we didn't have to ask for a refund of any sort it was offered quickly which was much appreciated as it's not nice to complain. I'm sure this is not the chefs normal service, January blues maybe but really not good enough in a hotel of this standard.

We had a lovely lunch and dinner for my partners birthday. Service by all staff was excellent, food was lovely.