Pebbles Restaurant in Purbeck

This is part of Rudd's Hotel - but they try and keep the reviews separate - with good reason. Lulworth Cove is beautiful. The pretty courtyard to the hotel looked a great spot for lunch and the menu looked perfect. We arrived at 12:45 and went to the hotel bar to collect menus and order. We ordered drinks but were told they had just taken a big food order and were waiting for some deliveries and would take our order in 10 or 15 minutes. When we went back later we were told the owner/chef was expecting a delivery of wood and they wouldn't come until he paid them hence a further delay. "It's like Fawlty Towers here" said the girl behind the bar. At 1:15 they announced that they were now taking lunch orders. We ordered Calamari and chips for my daughter, moules mariniere and chips for my son, a crab sandwich on brown with halloumi fries for my wife and seafood paella for me. Total cost £64.50. We were told we would be called to the window of the kitchen when the food was ready. In the meantime I went to the loo - a trip I would only recommend in the most urgent of circumstances. They didn't have brown bread (my wife won't eat white). As he pushed to polystyrene boxes of food through the window to me the chef explained that they didn't have halloumi fries so he had put in some spring rolls instead. The calamari was inedible. As I said to the chef - they could have been used as weapons in martial arts they batter was so hard. We also failed to detect any squid, The seafood paella was also inedible. They had lined the polystyrene box with tin foil because it was swimming with liquid. It was also bland and just awful. I complained to the chef who offered to refund the money for the paella - £15. I would have argued and demanded a full refund - but we were on holiday and it doesn't take much to embarrass an 11 and 12 year old - so I let it go. The girl who took our order came and put the refund back to my card. I have just got back home and checked my account and instead of refunding me £15 they charged me another £15. You couldn't make it up.

La comida era regular, el servicio lento. Después de pedir la factura, la camarera estaba al lado visto con pato wc en sus manos para limpiar el inodoro, nunca para ser visto de nuevo. Si sólo tenía una señal, me podría haber visto los malos comentarios anteriores aquí. Es mejor evitarlo.

veo la última crítica es desde 2013. Llevé a mi familia allí la semana pasada y fue bueno. Ha habido un cambio de propiedad? un precio bastante, la comida era de muy buena calidad. Necesitábamos dos sillas altas - sin ningún problema. Nos sentamos en una zona con sombra y era precioso.

visitado Lulworth Cove cada año. Esta vez decidimos probar guijarros restaurante y me defraudó después pagamos £25 por un pequeño cuenco de niño pasta y un pequeño trozo de pescado para mí. No estoy sorprendido por qué este lugar está vacío comparado con otros restaurantes en Lulworth Cove. Yo nunca volveremos otra vez y no se lo recomendaría a otros.

Well what can I say... Pebbles looked very pleasant from the outside and so we decided to have lunch there. What a terrible mistake. The food took nearly an hour to come and it was awful. The manager had a serious attitude problem too. Never again! Please avoid if you are ever in the area. There's plenty of other choice in Lulworth Cove. This place does not deserve to do business here.

Ordered a childs hot dog which was two small deep fried mini Frankfurters in half a burger roll looked disgusting so sent back . My burger was small cooked mince not even resembled a burger with fatty bacon . The Australian manager was rude and basically said like it or lump it would only refund childs meal after an argument . So as not to upset my 6 year old I paid for burger £10.95 !! And drinks and left . Please avoid this awful man and food

Beautiful Lulworth scallops perfectly cooked. Rack of lamb - tender and delicious. Pear frangipani tart: exquisite, served normally with ice cream but were very happy to do clotted cream instead. This was an expensive restaurant but the service was good, the food was good and the portion size was just right. Excellent if you enjoy your food, but not cheap.

We went to have a cream tea, there were two families, spent £40.00 and we received a very sorry excuse for a cream tea (£4.50 each). There was only one scone each, and my son had one that was like a hard baked buscuit. When we questioned the waitress on only having one scone, we where told 'it is nothing to do with me, I do not make up the rules'. I have attached a picture which advertises two scones on the board - enjoy your exclusive garden and pool! PS This is the first time I have ever rated a restaurant as I feel we were ripped off.

My girlfriend and I arrived in West Lulworth early evening on Friday 3rd July and decided to have a drink and something to eat. We first went to Bishops (see separate review), the bar at Bishops Cottage who recommended their sister restaurant “Pebbles” at The (Lulworth) Beach Hotel next door. We were shown to a table by the window by a charmless guy who we later discovered was the manager. We ordered a bottle of wine which he surprisingly brought to the table already opened and just left it to us to pour. Our starters were Devils on Horseback (scallops wrapped in bacon) which were delicious. My girlfriend then had the lamb cutlets and I, the wild boar sausage and mash, which after the starter were a little disappointing considering their prices. We then had a chocolate brownie and a coffee between us and this is when the manager’s character shone through. In both our opinions, the brownie tasted burnt and so we did not finish it, asking for it to be taken off the bill. The manager came over and said that he had tasted it and it was ‘fine and not overdone’. When I pointed out that to us it seemed more than overdone, i.e. burnt, his reply was ‘well, that’s the way it comes’! We paid the bill in full (~£74) and left. As someone who has worked both in restaurants and corporate Customer Service environments over the years, I feel justified in saying that I suspect this establishment only keeps going by relying on the hapless tourists who stubble upon them for the first time! Shame that we had not previously read the reviews or been to our BB before eating, as both would have warned us of what to expect…….

My girlfriend had popped in the day before to enquire about whether the restaurant allowed dogs inside. They don't, but they are allowed outside but the manager brusquely told my girlfriend that he wasn't serving outside that evening. Perhaps that should have been a warning. The next evening, tempted by the chalk board outside that advertised sea breem and mackeral (locally caught) we persevered, wanting to try somewhere different to eat. Unfortunately, neither of the advertised items were available, just sea bass. I appreciate that when the restaurant obtains locally caught fish, they can't guarantee supply, but its simple enough to change a chalk board or bring it inside altogether if what they are advertising is not available. When that was suggested, it was just shrugged off. The comments by other reviewers about the rude management rang true, but that said, the scallops wrapped in bacon were excellent, as was the seafood pie. My girlfriend's sea bass was lovely too, but the boiled new potatoes were too hard (not something that's difficult to get wrong) and the salad was clearly from one of those pre-prepared, washed supermarket salad bags you can buy - it was exactly the same as the one we'd brought down from Sainsburys! The setting inside is lovely and the setting outside is gorgeous, but like lots of restaurants in beauty spots, they can become complacent about good service when no doubt they get people through the door, although it was relatively quiet inside. Given the wealth of local produce and local beers, it would be good for a place like this to offer local Dorset bottled beers, rather than the standard Budweiser, Magners stuff. In summary, lots of potential, let down by complacency and rudeness.

We recently stayed at Lulworth Cove and ate at Pebbles 3 times. The first two visits were before we looked at these reviews and have to say all five of us had great meals. Three of us chose the catch of the day which was Sea Bream one time and Sea Bass the other, and each were superb. (before any cynics comment we three are fequent fish eaters and would be quick to make critism if food was poor). It is true to say that the manager comes over as being curt and abrupt (he certainly has no sense of humour anywhere in his body). But to be fair we all enjoyed our meals on both visits. Our last night at Lulworth we decided to go there again, and my daughter stumbled across these reviews. We were amazed as all of them were in stark contrast to what we had experienced. Jokingly we said oh well lets hope we don't tempt fate and decided that having had 2 good experiences we go again. OH DEAR ...... Boldly written on the blackboard outside was 'Catch of the Day, Sea Bream' So in we went. On ordering we were told that there was no Sea Bream but there was Bass. Given that we were the first evening diners in that evening I would have thought it would be a simple task to change the blackboard. Anyhow I chose the Bass. Daughter and Son in Law ordered lamb with potato. We also ordered a bottle of Sancere. Half way through our starters the waitress said that there was no chilled sancere, would I like to wait 15 minutes for some or choose another wine. Given that its not possible to get a decent bottle of wine chilled properly in that amount of time I went with the next on offer. 2 minutes before main course was served she appeared again to say that she was sorry they had sold out of that one !. Third choice was made although there was little that i would normally have chosen, but we were there and about to eat so there was little option. Once again the fish was good. However the lamb and potatos were another matter. Both meals were served with crispy topped potatoes but that were stone cold in the middle. The waitress was summoned and the meals taken back to the kitchen. By the time they came back the other three diners had all but finished our meals. At last back they came, this time though the potatoes were not even slightly warm anywhere. In fact they were so cold that they could have been used to chill the warm sancere!. The lamb was fatty and way below a standard that was acceptable. To their defence they did apologise and took the lamb meals off of the bill, but the evening was decidely spoiled. Whilst all this was going on another ferore was going on at a table where two couples had booked on the strength of the outside menu, only to be told that several of the items were no longer provided ! ie you could have scallops wrapped in bacon as a starter but not without the bacon as a main meal! - so if you don't cook in a certain style - don't advertise that you do !!! Then there were other issues with what they wanted to order and were told that they could not have. Out of a choice of five mains three had run out. How can any restaurant do that on a Friday evening opening time ???? So were we lucky twice, or unlucky once? My feeling is that the staff/manager are just not up the the job of ensuring a smooth running restaurant. Shame really we should have quit while we were ahead.

I'm not going to waste my breath it was that bad. After waiting an eon for a table we were pointed to 2 tables and told take your pick when the waitress walked away. We were told there was no seafood on the menu (seafood is one of there main attractions). We ordered a grand reserve 10 year old bottle of wine, we wern't shown the bottle prior to opening, the wine was cold, it's a red and should be served at room temprature, it was just a really bad experience. I can't be bothered to waste any more time on this place.

I came her for lunch with my partner when visiting Lulworth Cove - I wish I hadn't. We were seated quickly by the manager who took our order very abruptly. We had long waits for both drinks and food, which wasn't even very good. The burgers we had were OK but the fries and token salad were gross. The manager was clearly more concerned that things happen quickly rather than pleasantly, and though he was never directly rude to us the table next to us complained about him and another couple left before ordering because of him.

This was my most disappointing dining experience ever. The Lulworth Beach Hotel occupies a prime position in the beautiful village of Lulworth on an incredible stretch of Dorset's "Jurassic Coast". Unfortunately the steady flow of tourists and day trippers has allowed this venue to sit on its laurels, knowing that none will return anyway. No one ought to be allowed to go even once. It was disgraceful and we heartily wished we had conducted research before going - on our return we quickly saw a huge volume of negative reviews. The building is worn and shabby, the staff are lazy, sullen and conspicuous by their absence, the food is disastrous and the proprietor was so utterly charmless that it is insulting to think he is able to cream a living off this place, disappointing visitors to the area every day and giving UK cuisine and UK tourism a bad name. We should have taken heed from the shabby printed menu (with its suspiciously extensive but unappealing list of items) but were so hungry that we ploughed on. We ordered the daily special - fish and chips. As we were moments from the sea and from a brilliant, local fish seller, we didn't check whether the fish would be fresh. This was our fatal error. It took a long time to come and when it arrived, it was quite clear that it was a long time since this abysmal insult to the fish world had last seen the sea. It was pre-filleted, breaded and frozen - probably many miles and many years ago. It was then fried in aged oil, thereby picking up the rancid flavour of everything else cooked there in recent months and failing to resemble fish at all. It was appalling. The chips didn't make up for it - they were greasy without being crispy - and the salad "garnish" was embarrassing - beetroot slivers so old they were white and scaly. We could tell there was no point complaining. All the other groups sitting on the sunny terrace were equally unhappy and the staff were doing (and possibly could do) nothing about it. The table next to us complained that their cutlery had arrived 5 minutes after their food. The useless waiter failed to apologise properly and dispatched the proprietor to address the situation. He was corpulent, arrogant and just emerged from the next door bar (which he obviously owns also and spends a lot of time in) to say "if you came here looking for a fight, you've come to the right place" (!!!) only to disappear back to the bar (which incidentally served pints of watered down and horribly overpriced beer - £3.50 for a mediocre bitter). We paid and left, giving comments politely but firmly to the waiting staff. We then saw the proprietor in the street and decided to calmly inform him of our disappointing experience. He was aggressive, unapologetic and arrogant. We were appalled. Enquiring at the fish stall (where we were selecting fish from a very appealing spread of that morning's catch) about this place, it became quite clear that the place is not held fondly locally and that residents are very aware of how repulsive and damaging the place is. We should have done our research and perhaps only have ourselves to blame but it is immensely frustrating to see the mountains of criticism and yet know that people will continue to visit, continue to be disappointed and that revolting man will continue to cream an existence out of it. Overall this was a truly vile experience.

We arrived around 4.30. In the afternoon. The owner grudglingly said we could have a cream tea if we sat outside. Whe. We asked, politely, what the food consisted of, he smugly, but determinedly insisted 'we're closed'. Having grown up in another West Country tourist destination, I'm well aware that some proprietors take the view that they can be as rude as they like to customers on the basis that most consist of passing trade. Regrettably, this man is an example of this unpleasant attitude.

Friendly, mostly Australian staff. A great location on decking outside the restaurant and modern indoor tables. The menu is varied with plenty of fish, belly pork etc. Well cooked and tasty. This place didn't feel stuffy.We had unexpectedly sunny weather on the October day that we went and the staff seemed a bit pushed to handle the amount of custom that came their way, but overall they coped well. They also had rooms and I would consider going there to stay.Lulworth Cove is a pretty spot, but very touristy, with a large car park just outside the village, and a visitor centre.

Such a shame to read such harsh reviews. If we had seen them prior to visiting the restaurant we probably would have avoided it. However, our experience was excellent, albeit that there was an initial mistake with the order.The starters of scallops for myself and of mackerel for my husband were fresh tasting and beautifully cooked and presented. The main course of sea bass and of lamb (cooked to pink perfection) again were beautifully presented and fresh tasting. Fish can so often be spoilt by overcooking, but everything was just right - and we certainly put fish to the test!The chocolate dessert was heaven if calorific! The cheese board was generous and the choice of cheese was again excellent. We also heard other customers commenting positively on their food. I do hope they think to review their experience.We will definitely be returning - not just to collect the coats we left behind - but for another meal!

We walked in to make our table reservation with our 3 month infant and asked if it was OK our baby could join, and it was all OK'ed / agreed with the hostess. We where then shown to our table. My baby started to squirm as he was hungry, so I popped him under my jumper to discretely breast feed him when the manageress came over to explain... " we can't have THAT in here" and motioned to the exit. She went on to explain that they do not normally accept children under 12. Of course we had to leave as we now had a hungry baby. When leaving we passed a table of 4 children, all under 12. So my advice is to ask the manageress directly if you want to bring your children, and get permission on how you can feed them, or otherwise you'll face humiliation. By the way, we were there on a Saturday night, peak-August period and only 2 tables were taken, so I don't think it has a very good reputation. I'd recommend going up the path to Lulworth Cove Inn who did smashing scallops.

As a party of four, we had a thoroughly disappointing evening at this establishment. A total of six main courses were sent back due to fundamental problems with their cooking. "Crab and mussel risottos" arriving with hard, powdery, uncooked rice sitting in a puddle of fishy stock.A fillet of cod, served grey, jelly like, cold and raw. Smoked haddock delivered slimy, tepid and accompanied by a poached egg with the consistency of a Spacehopper.Meanwhile, fellow diners, concerned by our experience either left without paying in disgust at what they were offered or made distinct efforts to avoid fish dishes - perhaps surprising for a business just a stroll from the harbour.When we finally asked to see someone who purported to be in charge of this shambles, the frustrated and frazzled waiting staff had to run to a party along the road, where the owner was hosting an 18th birthday party for one of his children.He was a large, rather corpulent gentleman - the thought occurred that he didn't get that way eating his own food!When given feedback about the performance of the kitchen, he advised us that perhaps the risotto was "al dente" and that they always served their fish "under-cooked"! Some may say that perhaps he has mistaken the precise translation of "al dente" from the original Italian and that a better policy regarding fish may be to actually "cook" it, rather than "under-cook" it.As all other potential venues in this lovely setting were closed at this juncture and we had to actually eat something, we stuck it out to manage a selection of cheeses. To be fair, there is not much to go wrong with such a choice and so it proved.The potential for dispute at the time of bill-paying was obvious, but such was the level of incompetence, arrogance and amateurism that we had experienced, we elected to pay what we felt the experience had been worth. In hindsight that would be the wholesale price of 2 bottles of wine and some cheese, but he got a lot more than that from us.The only saving grace of the evening is that it will give the members of our party a story to tell for some years - indeed, some of the other diners who fell deathly silent when listening to our conversations with the owner may well tell the same tales!To conclude - at no time during this review have I referred to this establishment as a "restaurant". That has been a deliberate choice, as it does not begin to warrant such a description.

Four of us booked here for a meal on saturday night (26th September, 2009) and was appalled by the food.My husband and Brother-in-law ordered risotto with crab and muscles. The dish that was presented to them was undercooked powdery rice swimming in a pool of stock. The dishes were sent back only to reappear after being muked in a microwave. The only thing that had changed was the temperature.The food was sent back and they ordered fish. My husband had cod and BIL had mackeral. Well, the cod was raw and the mackeral was led on a dried out potatoe with a rubbery poached egg on top.This was getting to be a joke. The waitress was trying hard and having to cope with another set of diners walking out after tasting their meal and another pair walking out because they changed their mind.We asked to speak to the chef, but that was a no go. They ended up with a cheese board each as you cant go wrong with that.We asked to speak to the manager and was greeted by a rude (and worse for wear) man who told us to keep our voices down. He was far too busy down the road at his daughter's 18th party.He told us they always undercook fish and he had no excuse for the risotto.We refused to pay for any of the food and only left money for the wine and gave the poor waitress 20 pound tip for her stress.Don't eat here, it is the worse experience I have ever had in a resturaunt and we have eaten all other the world.!!

My partner and I had eaten at Pebbles twice over the years on our visits to Lulworth Cove. On our first visit we enjoyed a wonderful evening, with great atmosphere, service and food. The last occasion was to be our worst dinning experience to date…We ordered a three course meal, and pushed the boat out for a couple bottles of expensive wine to celebrate my birthday weekend. We both ordered a rack of lamb as the main course. Mine - 4 ribs with a good amount of meat, partner’s - 5 ribs with a lot of fat and little meat. The manager apologised and took the one dish away and brought back a new rack but I had already eaten my food by this time. I have been told since that in a good restaurant, they should offer to take the two plates away and serve two hot plates. At the end of the meal, we asked if the inconvenience of eating separately could be reflected in the bill, expecting a gesture of 10% reduction, or one of the racks dishes to be taken off the bill. The manager replied no because they gave a fresh plate of food. We, very calmly, stated that we were not going to pay the full amount. The manager snatched the bill from my partners hand and walked off. On her return, she told us she had called the police who were due to arrive shortly. Although we were completely surprised by her reaction, we still purposely remained calm and stated; we prefer to wait for the police and will explain why we would not pay the full amount. This is the managers exact words [--] off out of my restaurant, I don’t want your money”. Again we remained calm, although on leaving I did tell her “you are an evil woman and not fit to manage a restaurant”. I was very shaken by the experience, but unfortunately we did not hear the end of it. The next day, we had a call from the police and had been accused of leaving the restaurant without paying. The police were surprised to hear our account and we offered to come in to write a statement, but they did not want to get involved. The restaurant owner (husband of the manager) believed the manager’s account of us walking out without paying. We received over a dozen unpleasant phone calls from the owner that weekend, accusing us of walking out of restaurants without paying as a profession and threatened to take legal action against us.This is a true account of events that took place that weekend. On receipt of the bill through the post, we did pay the bill in part as per our initial intention. My partner and I like to eat in restaurants that guarantee good food, whether it be our local Indian, or Michelin starred restaurants. I’m sure there are very few people who would eat at good establishments with the intention of not paying – and we are certainly not.