Hotel Tresanton

When Olga Polizzi opened Hotel Tresanton at the end of the 1990s, she effectively invented the modern Cornish boutique hotel. Assembled from a former yacht club and a cluster of whitewashed houses climbing the hill above St Mawes, the hotel looks across the mouth of the Fal estuary to St Anthony Head and its lighthouse—a view that has anchored a thousand long lunches on the mosaic terrace.

Polizzi's interiors remain the template many imitators still chase: antiques and Cornish art mixed with striped fabrics and sun-bleached colour, no two of the thirty rooms alike, nearly all with sea views. The terraced layout means stairs and lanes rather than corridors, which adds charm in sunshine and character in weather. Families get their own cinema and playroom provision, but the register is essentially grown-up and quietly glamorous.

The restaurant leans coastal Mediterranean with Cornish landings—crab, day-boat fish, Italianate accents—served on the terrace whenever the weather allows. In summer the hotel's classic 1930s racing yacht, Pinuccia, offers guests sailing days on Falmouth Bay, a flourish few British hotels can match. St Mawes' pastel harbourfront is a two-minute stroll below. Tresanton remains the definitive smart Cornish escape for couples.