Birch Vale, Peak District, The Waltzing Weasel Inn

I am unable to recommend the accommodation as I have not yet stayed at the Weasel. However, since it changed hands earlier in the year, I can say that the restaurant has reverted to its former standard of quality prices, excellent food and good value.

The service and staff friendliness is second to none and the menu is varied with decent sized portions and a fair selection of fish too. Specials change regularly and round out the menu and there are various guest beers. The dining room is stylish, with fresh flowers and looks out onto the beautiful Derbyshire country and outdoor seating with shrubs and flowers.

The staff make the whole experience enjoyable and it is possible to make choices of meal in the comfortable lounge area, prior to moving to one of the two dining areas.

We like it so much that we visit almost weekly, even though we live around 15 miles away and have the choice of Manchester restaurants too.

The Waltzing Weasel is now under new management, and following a full re-furbishment, is now looking great and serving fantastic, home cooked food! All 8 rooms have been re-decorated beautifully and there is a relaxing ambiance throughout. The prices are very reasonable, £40 per night for a single room, £70 double B&B. There is a fabulous 2 course sunday lunch for £12.95 and 3 courses for £15.95 and a senior citizen menu is also available. For customers who may be put off by reading the reviews, i ask you to please give it a try!

We visited the The Waltzing Weasel Inn in Birch Vale a couple of years ago - great food and service then, fully anticipated it being the same only to be sorely disappointed. The exterior is poorly maintained, the interior is very poor too. Alarm bells rang when we were the only people in the restaurant on a Friday evening. Loud, unpleasant music was pumping out of a stereo in the corner - I got up and turned it down. The service was dire - they didn't have any of the wines we asked for off the menu, in the long list of problems with the food this included steak that we asked for rare came decidedly medium, the beef in yorkshire pudding came without yorkshire pudding, the coffee was stewed. All in all it was pretty awful - particularly when we knew what it had been like previously. This is a beautiful part of the country - this place does nothing to promote it.

The food is way too expensive i.e. "bangers N mash 9.50.

Beer too is almost the same as nightclub prices.

The room was basic but clean, However the wardrobe was full of junk. As was the gardens & lobby.

The bed was the lumpiest & hardest we have ever known.

In my opinion the place may have been "top notch" a few years ago but is now in need of a total re furb, i.e. wallpaper held up with masking tape. door handles falling off, toilet roll holder fell into pieces.

Flagstones in rear area are moss covered / filthy & dangerously uneven due to the mortar having been long since weathered away. Old tables & chairs litter the outsides front / sides & rear along with old kitchen appliances & an old car that looks like it is being "done up"

brown bread toast was plonked on the table I asked for white & was scowled at.

The final insult was an extra 10 pounds surcharge charged to the bill.

enough said ?.

Review of The Waltzing Weasel Inn, Birch Vale, High Peak, Derbyshire. How many times have you read a great review only to be completely compelled and inspired to visit a place based on that review: the outcome of which is having your great expectations ruined?. My review and dilemma unfolds here: after trawling the internet looking for a reasonably priced UK break for myself and my husband, not a problem: but throw into the mix taking my small pet Chihuahua Jimmy Choo-huahua into the equation and the result is yet more trawling through internet pages and a tidy and profitable increase on its way to BT-for the endless phone calls to Inns etc who alluded to being Dog friendly yet barked and quipped down the phone at me to advise they were not was a battle in itself!

My preference was to soak in the history and Englishness of the Lake District and fufill a promise I made to myself after heading up to Scotland a few years ago and passing through the Lakes and asking the question: what have I been doing to avoid ever being here?

No Inns, Hotels or Englishness could accomadate me: so promise over...I decided to try the Peak District (and already had in my mind set for the Peaks, smoking chimneys, characters like Green Grass from Heartbeat roaming the place...how wrong was I!)

Everything about the trip from beggining to end was pure joy, the open roads: views, friendly ramblers in the mood for a chat, fine wines and beer festival which had started as we arrived.

The Good: Waltzing Weasel Inn is a celebration of Derbyshire charm, it is everything you would expect of an Inn: the quaint teapots and local art and pictures of the Queen on horseback on the walls, the building dressed ear to ear internally in dark wood: all these things making up the allure and charm. The most impressive: the food I could have devoured everything on the menu twice over and after a walk in the hills there is nothing more rewarding than a three course meal and fine red wine with hints of Chocolate and spice beset in front of a open log fire. Jimmy Choo-huahua was allowed to roam in the bar with us, there is a seperate restaurant as well as the bar which takes in a picture perfect view of the Peaks. The room was immaculatley clean and I was expecting a hole given it was dog friendly..not so..oh and did I mention they have a jazz evening on the night we arrived!.

The Bad: the room we had, although pristine clean, was not modern

Overall: a warm friendly destination for those looking to take their dogs on a short break, highly reccomended.