Uplawmoor

Friendly staff, lovely room and great vegetarian breakfast.

Lovely quiet location for a weekend break

Superb hosts and lovely location.
Great place, great food! Great bar!

La amabilidad del personal

Breakfast was great. Staff were really helpful and friendly. Room was a good size and was clean. Bar/restaurant was good and notices were there stating that it was runner up in tv 4 in a bed and that a tv drama had been filmed there.

It was all very grim

Friendly staff and nice evening meal

Stayed here for a family wedding nearby. Thank you Lisa for the very warm welcome given to me on Saturday and to my family on Sunday. All staff very professional and friendly. Meal on the Saturday night was excellent. A very hearty Scottish breakfast on Sunday morning (although could do with being earlier than 10am) and family all enjoyed it on the Monday too. Room very clean and bed very comfortable. Had a great night's sleep. Only only downside to room 3 is: windows could do with replacing and the bathroom could do with new flooring and a new shower unit as a bit mouldy. The outside could do with a general tidy up. Apart from that a great place to stay.

As a local resident of Uplawmoor, it genuinely pains me to leave a negative review for a business in our own village. I want to see local businesses succeed, and I would much rather be writing a five-star review. However, I feel compelled to give honest feedback because, frustratingly, most of the issues we experienced would be relatively simple to put right.

Firstly, the food itself was excellent. All of our main courses were very good quality, well cooked and the portion sizes were exceptionally generous. There was certainly no feeling of being short-changed on the food, and the kitchen deserves real credit for what came out.
Unfortunately, the overall experience surrounding the food didn't match its quality.

Even before going inside, the first impression could be improved. The building itself is attractive, but the frontage and edges of the car park have a considerable build-up of moss and algae. It honestly looks like an afternoon with a pressure washer would make a massive difference.
The menus were probably the biggest visual disappointment inside. They're basic double-sided laminated sheets which, in my opinion, look more like something produced for a school project than a hotel restaurant. They give a corner café/greasy spoon impression which simply doesn't reflect the quality of the food being served. After we'd ordered, the menus were also left sitting on our table rather than being collected.

There were similar small details missing throughout the meal. Staff weren't wearing any obvious uniform or name badges. There appeared to be one female member of front-of-house staff handling most things, with a gentleman occasionally helping to clear tables, so I appreciate staffing levels may have played a part in some of what followed.

When our food arrived, there was no offer of sauces, so we had to specifically ask. When the ketchup came, it was served in a small disposable paper portion pot – the sort of thing I'd associate with McDonald's rather than a hotel restaurant.
The chips themselves would have been lovely, but were absolutely covered in salt. There was visibly a huge amount on them and it completely overpowered them. Personally, I'd much rather chips were lightly seasoned and customers given the option to add more themselves.

There were other little presentation details too. The mac & cheese, for example, was served in a bowl sitting directly on another plate and consequently slid around every time it was touched. Something as simple as a folded napkin between the bowl and plate would solve it.
The biggest disappointment, however, was the lack of attentive service after the meals arrived. There was no check-back to ask whether everything was okay. In fact, after the food had been delivered it almost felt as though our table was being avoided. When our plates were cleared, nobody asked whether we'd enjoyed the meal or whether everything had been alright.
At the end, we weren't offered the bill either. Eventually we had to get up from the table and go to the bar ourselves to ask to pay.

That's what makes the experience so frustrating: the difficult bit seems to be right. The food was genuinely very good. The quality was excellent, it was well cooked and the portions were extremely generous. It's the front-of-house service, presentation and attention to detail that are letting it down.

And most of these aren't expensive or complicated things to fix – pressure wash the frontage, improve the menus, give the front-of-house team a consistent appearance, clear menus after ordering, offer condiments when serving food, check back with the table, ask how the meal was when clearing plates and offer the bill at the end.

As someone who lives in the village, I genuinely don't take any pleasure in writing this. I'm certainly not doing so to attack a local business. Quite the opposite: I'd like to have a really good hotel and restaurant on our doorstep and I want to see The Uplawmoor Hotel do well.

The quality coming out of the kitchen shows the potential is absolutely there.

Room was a really good size, nice clean modern bathroom. There was a tea tray in the room which was lovely and a good sized tv.

Breakfast was good good clean location

Good location in small village
Plenty of car parking
Room a good size
Breakfast was lovely
Staff very pleasant

Breakfast

The food is exceptional. Home cooked food to order, that is outstanding. The staff were really friendly and helpful and the location is beautiful.

Friendly staff
Excellent breakfast
Great size family room
Quiet location and homely feel