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The restaurant has booths, small and large tables in idosyncratic spaces that work well - click to see more.
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Downstairs is the traditional pub bar and beer garden but also serving coffees from the operator's Costa Coffee brand - click for the bar.
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Those who are not familiar with Whitbread eateries may be surprised at the change being wrought in the food operation. Many hotels could learn good lessons from the healthy breakfast options, and the healthy nature of much of the offerings in the remaining meals, despite the reputation of these operations for old fashioned English pub catering. English food has changed greatly over the last 15 years and Whitbread has moved with the tide whilst keeping traditional. The standard English breakfast may still be the main offering, but not only is the healthy alternative available, but it is also given at a very competitive price. Like Travelodge, which grew out of its affinity with Little Chef and who's menus have been so publicly reworked recently, Premier Inn took path of adding bedrooms where they had an existing pub food outlet, becoming a new twist to the tradition of the English Inn and taking many design cues from its origins.
The food operation therefore may well be pub eatery based, but the majority of the meats are char grilled, one of the healthiest ways to prepare meat. The design also remains steadfastly linked to traditional pub design, with dark timbers, hard floors and all the other touches that make pub dining the English equivalent to the Italian trattoria in its implementation of traditional folk design. It is from these roots that traditions in hotel keeping have grown. Whether from the German Gasthaus, French Pension, or English Inn the image of 'mine host' in an apron greeting a traveller to his inn is the hallmark of expectation for a guest.
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Measured against this image, the Premier Inn did not fail. A smiling and friendly greeting conformed to the expectation - an expectation more superior hotels fail to meet (as Olga Polizzi once observed to me, "if you can't smile at the guest, why work in hospitality?") Reception is minimalist but functions effectively. The explanations of the food operation, the offer of a daily paper, were clear, simple and offered with enthusiasm. When pressed, the staff across the whole operation were fulsome in their praise of Whitbread as an employer, and the hotel operation was testimony to the effectiveness of the brand management and training.
Whitbread offer a clear money back guarantee if the guest doesn't get a comfortable clean room and a good night's sleep. Unfortunately here the new extension, whilst offering new design rooms, has been located badly alongside the car park entrance to the busy restaurant. The result is noise complaints from rooms overlooking the exit from the car park. There must be a good reason why the architect did not position the building nearer to the canal, which despite the busy road on the other side, would probably have been a quieter solution. However the rooms in the main hotel block were very quiet, overlooking a school playing field complex and abutting the canal - now a strip of nature that makes the walk into Woking centre a delightful expedition.
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Design is in the European vernacular tradition's English variation - same feel in German bier keller, Italian Albergo or Polish traditional restaurant (see the DesignClub Gallery Designers Sources for examples).
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Premier Inn
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