A white harbourside hotel building behind a stone sea wall, with umbrellas along its terrace, houses on a wooded hillside behind, and calm blue water in front, lit by evening sun.

The Idle Rocks

££

Grown-up & familyCoastalContemporaryRecommended

Recommended by friends and by publications we trust. We have not stayed yet; it is high on our list.

Harbourside, St Mawes, Cornwall, TR2 5AN Website

Built onto the harbour wall at St Mawes, so the window seats upstairs look over moored boats to the hills, and dinner's fish lands a few metres from the kitchen.

The Idle Rocks went up in 1913 on the site of the St Mawes Bakery, and by the 1950s it had French chefs and two AA Rosettes, in a village then being sold as a British edition of St Tropez. Since then the slipway has gone and the terrace has grown, so the white front, under a slate roof set with dormers, stands straight on the harbour wall with a row of umbrellas along the top. Inside, the seaside is done with restraint: a floral headboard in green and blue under a sloping ceiling, French doors open to a balcony. The Seaview rooms look across the water towards the Percuil River, but book a Grand Seaview, the largest, for the window seats over the harbour. In one of them a freestanding bath stands under a sash window full of moored boats, with a painting above it of someone folded into a bath, in case the idea needed suggesting.

Recommended for couples content to watch the harbour from a window seat, and for families who can trade a pool and a kids' club for a beach two minutes' walk away. The Seaview Family room sleeps two adults and two children, the children in seaside-themed bunk beds, and reception can arrange babysitting. The dog can come too. St Mawes Castle is a quarter of an hour on foot and Falmouth twenty minutes by foot ferry. The hotel's own RIB, Paramour, takes guests about the bay and, more usefully, brings them back from an evening out. Dinner is at The Reef Knot, out on the south-facing terrace when the weather allows. The fish is delivered a few metres from the kitchen, a shorter trip than anyone eating it has made.

A bedroom under a sloped ceiling with a green and blue floral headboard, a striped throw on the bed, a green armchair, and open French doors leading to a balcony.

A free-standing white bathtub below a window looking out over a harbour full of moored boats, with patterned blue curtains and a framed painting on the wall.

A pan-fried fish fillet on a plate of orange sauce finished with dots of a dark reduction.

A window seat heaped with a faux fur throw and velvet cushions, looking out through a sash window over an estuary to green hills opposite.

The same white harbourside hotel seen from the water in daylight, with a small boat moored offshore, a beach exposed at low tide, and houses on the hillside behind.

A hotel lounge with bookshelves either side of a blue painting, armchairs upholstered in blue and striped fabric, and a vase of flowers on a side table, seen through an open glazed door.

Rooms

Rooms: 19
Family rooms: Yes

Room types

Grand Seaview
Harbour View
Seaview
Seaview Family
Seaview Cosy
Village Hideaway
Village Cosy

Pools

Pools: 0

Creche

Babysitting: Available

Food and drink

Restaurants: 1
Bars: 1
Worth booking: The Reef Knot, the hotel's own restaurant on a south-facing terrace built out over the harbour wall, with a Michelin Guide mention and 2 AA Rosettes for its sea-to-table Cornish cooking.
Children's menu: Yes
Board: Room and breakfast, Half board

Practical

Airport: Cornwall Airport Newquay, about 45 minutes
Beach: Short walk, shingle
Step-free: Yes
Parking: Yes
Dogs: Yes
Open: year round

Building

Built: 1913
Converted: 2013

Services

Spa: Yes
Shuttle: Yes
Room service: Yes
Laundry: Yes
Worth knowing: The SEVAN Spa, which takes hotel guests and day visitors for treatments, and the hotel's own water taxi, which runs guests out into the bay from the harbour.