You’re never far from the water in this town, even more so when staying at the Old Quay House, where the balconies are not so much by the water as over it. The soothing hark of seagulls is almost constant and the movement of tides and boats, from canoes and dinghies to trawlers and ships, quickly become discussion points. Just lying in bed with the balcony windows open to the view is exquisitely relaxing – Room 12 with its advantageous corner position is definitely one to aim for. The décor is modishly coastal rather than cheesily nautical and it featured a huge raffia headboard reaching from behind an even larger – and dreamily soft – bed with goose down duvet. Bathrooms are clean-lined with power showers and White Company smellies dispensers you can pump away to your heart’s content. In the cupboard, considerate raincoats as well as tactile robes. It may seem delightfully getaway-ish, but if you simply can’t miss the rugby, racing or football, there’s a flatscreen television, a DVD for quiet nights in, and for people who can’t afford to forget business matters, easy-to-use in-room wifi access as well as a computer room on the second floor for guests without a laptop. Newlyweds and other special occasion visitors can plump for the penthouse with free-standing claw-foot bath and top-of-the-building estuary views.

Set at the heart of Fowey, the hotel handles the delicate issue of parking with aplomb. Guests drop their luggage off at reception then drive round to the large harbourmaster’s car park by the marina where the vehicle can be left until your departure; from there it’s a pleasant five-minute walk back to the hotel, which helps give a real feel for the town. Fowey’s grooviness is immediately apparent from the boutiques and galleries on the main drag but it’s only from across the water that you appreciate some of the modest-looking houses are really rather chic, with enviable water views. The smart décor of the hotel’s ground-floor lounge bar is as much of a draw as the spacious terrace at rear, where a few friends and chilled bottle or two of rosé make a winning plan for summer afternoons. A photo album by the door details the property’s conversion from dingy naffness to relaxed glamour and makes an interesting read before dinner.

Menus in the bistro-ish ‘Q’ restaurant have a comforting British-Mediterranean theme. The sardines, for example, will be Cornish but could come with a herb crust and Sicily’s favourite way with aubergine – caponata. On our visit, a list of seasonal specials included sautéed wild mushrooms with wild garlic and a fried duck egg, plus freshest local sea bass with good crisp skin and crushed potatoes. Cottage of pie duck arrived under a duvet of soft, silky mash in a vintage enamel dish. We also enjoyed large plates of steaming shellfish pasta and sides of minted roast pumpkin. Desserts, if you have room, might be zingy rhubarb trifle with vanilla shortbread, or a respectable chocolate fondant with grilled banana and praline ice cream.

If you haven’t spent all afternoon knocking back rosé on the terrace, or the terrific beers from St. Austell and Sharp’s breweries at the local pubs, a carefully made house cocktail will start the evening with a swing. Move on to the approachable wine list and you’ll find nothing over £50 a bottle; we decided a special offer of £30 for the quality Chablis too good to miss.

Breakfast brings pickings such as a good spicy dried fruit compote with Greek yoghurt, pancakes with maple syrup, lean smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, strong tea and individual Cafetières of coffee. The full English temptingly includes boar pudding as well as black pudding and fried bread. Service from owner Jane Carson’s team is suitably informal and friendly – particularly kind too, we note, as they offered us bacon sandwiches for our ridiculously early Monday morning departure. You want to delay leaving as long as possible too, we reckon. Infact you’ll probably leave a bit of your heart in Fowey: whichever way you look at it, the town’s easy to fall in love with.
 

This smart modern restaurant enjoys a spectacular waterfront location, with uninterrupted views across the Fowey Estuary. From the terrace you could almost dip your toes in the water. The menu takes it cue from the surroundings and offers a good number of fish and seafood options: starters such as moules marinière or confit grilled sardines could be followed by grilled lemon sole with crayfish butter and roast carrots or roast haddock with bubble and squeak, poached duck egg and mustard hollandaise. Alternatives might be roast beetroot and fromage blanc with walnut dressing or a charcuterie plate for two to start, and then a cassoulet of local duck or butternut squash risotto with walnut and rocket. Finish with chocolate fondant, plum tart with caramel ice cream and liquorice syrup, or Tarte Tatin for two with Calvados crème fraiche. The wine list is helpfully divided by style, and covers everywhere from France to New Zealand.
 

The Old Quay House has everything going for it: an idyllic waterfront setting, a colourful history dating back to 1889 and an airy architect-designed interior. Add to this owners passionate about good service and a loyal staff determined to deliver and you have a super little hotel. Stylish bedrooms spoil you all the way. You get goose down duvets, Egyptian white cotton, Japanese cabinets and seriously indulging bathrooms (bathrobes, the odd claw-foot bath, maybe a separate shower). Seven have balconies with glittering estuary views and flood with light, those further back look over the rooftops of Fowey. Settle down to delicious modern European dishes in the ‘Q’ restaurant, smartly decorated in neutral tones, or spill out onto the terrace overlooking the estuary; you can breakfast here in the sun and watch the ferry chug past. Fowey is enchanting, bustles with life and fills with sailors for the August regatta. Come for the best of old Cornwall – narrow, cobbled streets, quaint harbour, long-lost ways. A great place to unwind.
 

A great place. So nice to be right on the water in this lovely town. Our delightful bedroom overlooked the estuary.' Praise this year for Jane and Roy Carson's modern hotel, a stylish conversion of a Victorian seamen's mission which has just been awarded a gold award by the Cornish Tourism Authority as 'the Best Small Hotel in Cornwall'. Drinks, snacks and summer dinners are served on the rear terrace by the water; inside there is an 'eclectic collection of furnishings and ornaments' and 'lots of raffia'. Bedrooms are done in pale pastel shades. 'A DVD-player and waterproof coats were nice touches; excellent bathroom. In Q, the large restaurant, chef Ben Bass serves a 'modern British menu with European influence' (e.g., duck rillettes with grape chutney; rib-eye steak with Lyonnaise potatoes). 'Excellent food, attentive and pleasant service. A good breakfast, on the terrace, served by a delightful Polish couple.
 

This restaurant surely has one of the best views in the country, overlooking Fowey estuary. You would expect the menu to reflect the proximity to the sea, so crab ravioli, sautéed spinach and sauce vierge doesn’t disappoint, nor the classic moules marinière. Moving on to mains, pan-fried lemon sole à la Grenobloise with potatoes hits the mark, whilst roast whole red gurnard, fennel and potato salad, though at the pricey end of the menu, fulfils its promise. Carnivores get a look-in too, in the shape of roast breast of Terras Farm duck with cocotte potatoes, sauce albafuera and carrot purée. Puddings lean towards the conventional, with knickerbocker glory and chocolate brownie with malted ice cream making an appearance.
 

Typical of many Londoners suffering from urban ennui, the owners of this 11-room waterfront hotel escaped to the countryside. In the idyllic seaport of Fowey (pronounced "foy"), they bought an 1859 former seaman's hostel and gave it a boutique makeover. While they've retained its quaint exterior, the bedrooms have been modernized and "dressed" slightly differently - a Moroccan mirror or table in one room, basket chairs and tables in another - but all follow a cream and white color palate. Only Room Three strays into dramatic territory with deep-red velvet throws and cushions. Book one of the eight rooms with patios and views of the estuary, otherwise you might end up overlooking a pretty but occasionally noisy street. On the ground floor, there's a lounge and a restaurant with a lovely terrace facing the water. The food is, as expected, mainly fish (Cornish sea bass, Cornish crab, Cornish plaice), with a Mediterranean twist. The hotel is well placed for visiting the Eden Project and driving or yachting around the gentler coastline of South Cornwall.
 

It’s pronounced ‘Foye’ but it’s spelt Fowey. One of the oldest towns in Cornwall, the port of Fowey is famous for smugglers, pubs such as the King of Prussia and the trade in Cornish tin and fish and French salt and wine that has flourished here since the 15th Century. What’s more, the clay quarry just down the river was a source of fine white china much coveted by the likes of the Sevrées porcelain workshops set up by Louis XIV. An indication of Fowey’s historical status is that the largest ship in Henry IV’s fleet was named the George of Fowey. With its snug harbour and old town choc-a-block with charmingly crooked, higgledy-piggledy buildings that lean every which way, some dating back to Elizabethan times, its not surprising that the author Daphne du Maurier chose to settle here. Fowey has history and charm and character in spades, and despite the summer crowds it is still one of the most endearing seaside towns in England.

Bang on the water in the centre of town is The Old Quay House, built in 1869; a whitewashed piece of maritime history with its own dock and a terrace that once would have been the working place of the harbourmaster. More recently, it has been a hospital for down-and-out seamen. When Jane Carson and her husband found it, it was run down and in desperate need of a remake. The irony is, they weren’t even looking for a hotel. They loved Cornwall, and were in search of a summer cottage. They were registered with an estate agent, and somehow by accident they ended up on the mailing list for commercial properties. So, back in London, instead of flipping through brochures and listings of houses, they ended up perusing commercial properties late at night in bed, and eventually ‘maybe we could…’ turned into ‘why don’t we…?’ They sold up, moved to Fowey, and dived into turning the derelict boarding house into what is now one of the most stylish small hotels in town.

Apart from its location, its trump card is the restaurant, arguably the best place to eat in Fowey. Style-wise, The Old Quay Restaurant is comfortably chic; a restrained but appropriately bright and simple approach that allows the view to remain the dominant feature. In summer everybody stays on the terrace for as long as possible. It’s a perfect spot for pre-and-post dinner drinks. Sticking directly into the town’s bay, with a view of hundreds of sailboats bobbing on their moorings, this is the kind of places that makes you long to go to sea, but that makes most sailors want to drop anchor and come ashore.

There’s a healthy, sunburned, windswept, wholesome personality to Fowey, which you only find in towns popular with sailors. But you don’t need a boat to be able to suck in the atmosphere; just a reservation at ‘Q’ Restaurant will do the trick. And considering the town’s clamp-down on motorized traffic, a big advantage of staying at The Old Quay House is not having to schlep back up the town’s steep hill to the municipal car park, hidden among the plane trees at the top. A short walk along the town’s esplanade takes you to Readymoney Cove, a small and beautifully secluded beach which apart from being a perfect spot for a swim, looks out onto the ivy-covered remains of a medieval stone watchtower, a reminder of times when Fowey’s status as one of the most important trading ports in Cornwall made it worthy of military protection.
 

The pretty village of Fowey, with its narrow lanes and little cottages cascading down the hillside to the harbor, is understandably a popular holiday spot. Besides its maritime history the town has literary associations with Daphne du Maurier, who lived and based her novels in the area. Right on the water in the centre of town The Old Quay House was built in 1889 for the harbourmaster. His boat dock is now the hotel’s waterside terrace, offering a vista of hundreds of boats bobbing at anchor. The building has been a home for elderly seamen, but most recently Jane and Roy Carson have given the place a complete makeover, creating a beautiful boutique hotel. Bedrooms offer something to suit everyone from richly decorated rooms to those featuring softer beige tones. Several look out over the harbour, but without doubt rooms 6 and 12 offer the most spectacular views. Downstairs the Q restaurant is an excellent place to eat - the food is locally sourced and fish features prominently on the menu. There are spectacular walks along the coastal path. It’s a perfect base for visiting the Eden Project, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and Llanhydrock House.
 

The Old Quay House is a chic boutique hotel situated in one of the most idyllic waterfront locations in Cornwall. With a rich and colourful history dating back to 1859 a brand new architect designed interior has turned this chic retreat into a stunning small luxury hotel. The owners are passionate about service and their loyal staff are determined to deliver to their exacting standards guaranteeing the perfect stay at what is undoubtedly one of the most exciting boutique hotels in Cornwall. 21st century styling is cleverly combined with traditional architecture and there is an eclectic collection of furnishings and ornaments throughout including the 12 individually designed rooms, 7 of which benefit from estuary views and patios. For any discerning visitor to Cornwall, and as one of the finest hotels in Fowey, The Old Quay House Hotel is the only place to stay. The great thing about staying here is that you don't feel that you need to puff up the cushions after you have sat on the sofa - guests are encouraged to relax and feel at home.
 

The Old Quay House is exactly what the name describes – a historic property idyllically set on the attractive waterfront at Fowey. Although it has a colourful history dating back to 1889, it is the more recent treatment of the interior that is most exciting. Architect designed, its contemporary styling is cleverly juxtaposed with traditional architecture, demonstrating a flair that is rarely seen outside the nation’s capital. Every one of the 12 bedrooms has benefited from this approach, and seven of them have the extra attraction of a private patio with views down the estuary. It is clear that the owners are passionate about the Old Quay House, and this extends to the level of service and attention to detail. First impressions here couldn’t be more inviting. Guests are greeted by a view through to the Q restaurant, the sun terrace beyond and the glittering waters of the estuary in the background. The restaurant soon demands more than a cursory glance, for this is where head chef Ben Bass creates his innovative menus of modern European cuisine, which has brought many accolades, including two AA rosettes. It is fast becoming one of the places to eat in Cornwall. And what better, after a satisfying meal and perhaps a digestive by the waterside, than knowing your bed is just a short walk away.
 

The restaurant at this ‘contemporary boutique hotel’ looks the business, with its blond wood, interesting artefacts, dark sea-grass chairs and picture windows overlooking the estuary. The kitchen is also making its mark, and local fish gets a good airing in the shape of, say, sweet roast scallops with marinated fennel, slivers of radish and shellfish bisque, or crisp-skinned fillet of roast black bream with dried tomatoes and a fricassee of squid and chickpeas. Alternatives appear in the guise of roast fillet of lamb with persillade of spring vegetables and boulangère potatoes (‘what a good dish!’ enthused a reporter), or poached breast of local chicken with herb butter. Bitter chocolate tart with home-made cherry ice cream makes a pleasant finish. The modest wine list covers a lot of territory, with prices from £13.50.
 

The terrace of this former seamen's hostel is surrounded on three sides by water. Jane and Roy Carson have turned it into a comfortable and luxurious hotel with a mix of old and new; the minimalist decor fits neatly with the austere exterior. Innovative cooking in Q, the restaurant with magnificent estuary views. Great breakfast.