Urban Beach Hotel and Bistro Bournemouth

Down in Bournemouth for weekend, recommended to dine at any of the seaside restaurants by the pier in Boscombe. Went down there, packed and as usual the overworked staff was rushed off their feet and management/owner is not particularly bothered about the etiquette of customer service when there's queues of people waiting for a table.

As I've never believed in being a lemming waiting for the next cliff, I looked for another restaurant and came across the Urbanbeach hotel & bistro. Its on the jutting junction of three roads with an outside wooden deck with pergola and flaming heaters and a rather cosy comfortable inside dining area.

Absolutely clean homely feel but the entire operation was run efficiently and without any stress on all the service staff. Even though several tables were reserved and the entire place was packed, being a hot lovely Friday evening and it was Pride weekend, they endevour to eventually found me a table. I had the seafood tureen for starter and the place (fish) for main. Sumptuously prepared and eye catchingly presented to 'mum's portion' I had nothing to fault with their kitchen delivery.

The front of house service was always with a smile, a short chat and never too busy. It is lovely to see a bunch of guys and girls so well orchestrated that it does not make you as the customer feel a bit guilty when the staff are all stressed and scurrilously around. I enjoyed my dining experience so much I finished a bottle of my Italian wine all by myself.

Anyway, I was staying until Sunday, so naturally I steer clear of the pier area and went back to urbanbeach again this evening for dinner. This time I had mussels for starter and the lobster thermidor as main. Again, nothing to fault and the place was heaving again. I've never been one for chips but somehow the home prepared chips that accompanied my lobster were just crunchy enough outside yet powdery soft inside, tasty and not oily at all!

Its often sad that British customer service and quality have been our downfall so its such a relief when I come across such a marvelous example as the Urbanbeach that rightfully challenge my negative generalization.

Well done to Mark and his fantastic team and I wish his business a growing success and hopefully he will export an operation to Brighton where such an operation is much needed. Oh before I forget, the price was also certainly fair. For the Friday meal with a bottle of wine, I paid approx £42 and for this evening's meal with no wine, only freshly squeezed pineapple juice and pot of tea but with lobster, I paid around £31.