The Sitwell Arms Hotel

We went for a late family Christmas dinner, never been to the Sitwell Arms Hotel before. Everyone had a great time, food was tasty and great value, we had the beef, Turkey and Pork Belly for our mains, plus a kids beef. All very well cooked, came out hot and all was very tasty. Service was very good, the hotel lounge were we ate, was nice a Christmasy, well looked after, and had a really good ambience.. only slight complaint is the room was a little cold.. but all in all for only £19 for 2 courses, we all thought everything was great value, and very tasty, would definitely recommend.

It was a Monday night and the service was very slow due to there being only two staff on duty. There was a large Christmas party and a few other diners. There was one bartender and one waitress. At one point we considered leaving. Thankfully when the food arrived it was excellent.

We recently had our evening wedding reception party here at the Sitwell. It’s a place we have loved coming to previously for meals out, one of our favourites for food, so we was really looking forward to holding our party here. On arrival for party day we all got checked in fine and the rooms were great. We had no.17 the four poster room and it was a beautiful room to stay in. There was a concern when at 4.45pm the party room was still freezing cold and in darkness (the party was at 7 and people were already arriving to check in) I was about to have my hair done so was worried about leaving this to other people to sort. I did attend reception to find out what was happening and was told an events coordinator would come and see me at 5, but nobody did. I ended up ringing my partner who sorted the whole room leaving him only 20 minutes to get ready. (Not sure if this is normal for an evening party so it is what it is, we just feel the communication of this wasn’t the greatest). We was told in our package we would be having wooden rustic love letters. On arrival they were white (no major issue at all, at least we had some. However I had paid extra for the rustic looking dj booth cover so it all matched). The party went great, nothing spoilt our night at all. However after the party we have had some complaints from guests. The vegetarian food wasn’t clearly labelled and was out next to the main buffet so people had accidentally eaten it. Leaving 3 vegetarians that we know of, not eating all night. I think a simple sign stating you need to request this option at the bar or a simple sign stating on the buffet what is what, would have prevented this. We was also informed over glasses of wine being returned as they were served warm, and another guest waited 30 minutes to be served as the bar service was slow. We then had another guest tell us they had an altercation with the events coordinator as she was rudely told to move so they could clean the area she was standing. As stated earlier, me and my husband did have a brilliant night for our wedding reception, it has just been disappointing to hear of these issues afterwards.