Beside The Seaside | Hotel Tresanton, Cornwall

The seagull, diplomatically turning his back, eyed my globe artichoke with curiosity.  His neighbours, a racy pair of pigeons, were having an indiscreet seaside coupling on the slate roof overlooking the restaurant terrace. It only lasted about 30 seconds, but the Tresanton is just so damn sexy it seemed apt.

The Hotel Tresanton sprawls above St Mawes, a remote coastal village of intense beauty and isolation. It’s cut off entirely from the main highways and byways of Cornwall – you’re never going to “pass through”, as it’s down at the furthermost tip of the lush Roseland Peninsula, and best accessed by a jaunty little ferry from Falmouth. Throughout the noughties, this was England’s hottest vacation bolthole. Kate, the Conrans, Charles and Camilla, and all manner rock stars with glossy flotsam and jetsam in tow made it so popular that, famously, Tony Blair was once refused a room: there was no space.

Current owner Olga Polizzi came into possession of the property after marrying writer William Shawcross, whose family had local connections. She bought the near derelict property in 1997, and spent two years creating a modern, luxurious masterpiece. On one stairway, a series of watercolours depict the efforts Olga went through to make all this happen – a complex rebuild that makes an episode of Grand Designs look like Lego.

In the beginning, St Mawes’s tightknit community regarded their sophisticated new neighbours as arrivistes. It was a while before the red carpet was rolled out for London socialite Olga Polizzi and her kids Alex – currently “The Hotel Inspector” off the telly – and Charlie, who runs Onda, an elegant harbourside boutique that wouldn’t be out of place on the Costa Smeralda. If the Polizzi dynasty sounds familiar, it’s better known as Forte – for decades the name above the door of a global business hotel chain but now downsized to a smoothly run batch of cool properties under the auspice of Olga’s brother Rocco. She does the interior design for his portfolio, but Tresanton is hers.

Along with what looks like a fair few regulars from The Electric, there are couples with tiny babies, posh grannies and happy hillwalkers. All come to slip down oysters hauled out the water at Porthilly

Olga brought her personal vision to St Mawes long before the Boho-Chic arrived from Notting Hill to chill in the “hotel-as-home” sanctuary she had created – a domestic style now so generic its influence is seen in everything from AD to the Sunday supplements. She was stripping floors, mixing up bold stripe fabrics with baroque antique dressers from Belgium and sanding tongue and groove long before the likes of Soho House claimed the Farrow & Ball catalogue as their own. It’s quite comic, really, because having created a look of such relaxed simplicity, with a bit of seaside jollity thrown in, she’s now moving on (her second hotel, the Endsleigh in Devon, has wallpaper), adapting and developing just as Soho House is spreading its oversized sofas across the western world, with new outposts opening everywhere from Toronto to Istanbul, a second House imminent in New York City, and plans to take over a chunk of the old, iconic, BBC Television Centre in White City. Its only rural outpost is Babington House in Somerset, Britain’s coolest media retreat, that’s increasingly difficult to book because even country space is finite, just like those pesky London restaurants with no available tables,

But here, down in deepest, remotest, faraway seaside Cornwall sits what might be though of as the blueprint. It’s already prepped, ready and awaiting for Soho and Shoreditch habitués to holiday with each other on vast decks and terraces overlooking the sea, sipping Raspberry Mojitos at lunch and Espresso Martinis after dinner.

I suspect Olga won’t sell. Tresanton works just fine the way it is. The staff are employed year round, and happy staff hold the key to happy guests. They’re from Italy, Glasgow and Oporto as well as St Mawes itself, and many have been there for several years. In the hospitality industry, that’s very special, not to say increasingly rare.

Just as crucially, the twenty-odd rooms and suites are all individually styled with pared back design and a palette of muted colours to emphasise the USP – uninterrupted sea presence. Throughout there are wide, uninterrupted views over the Fal estuary where yachts pootle about, including the hotel’s famous 1939 Italian racer, the sleekly sensuous Pinucchia. The interior design brings it all together: sparse, eclectic junkshop classics contrast with modernist shards of elegance, a combo for relaxation, simplicity and taste. The laidback vibe is enhanced by a scattering of P.G. Wodehouse novels, proper board games and the bold, brightly coloured abstract paintings of the late Sir Terry Frost, a local hero of mine and many others.

Along with what looks like a fair few regulars from The Electric, there are couples with tiny babies, posh grannies and happy hillwalkers. All come to slip down oysters hauled out the water at Porthilly, or dissect spankingly fresh mackerel and translucent flakes of cod, gussied up with clams, octopus and fresh Cornish crab. There’s locally reared fillet of beef, served rare with squidgy little gnocchi parcels and wines which are frankly just what you want to drink. A summery Provençal rosé had the palest salmon hue, and was just as fruity and understated as Domaine Ott’s pricey pink, but served here by the large glass at six quid a pop. I rarely finish dinner with anything other than cheese (which is excellent and local, served in generous quantities with properly rough oatcakes and apple chutney) but an Affogato di gelato proved irresistable and had me back in Rome. Just for a moment.

And of course by now the Polizzi clan have been made welcome by the St Mozzians. They’re local heroes, running lunch and cinema clubs, and opening up the hotel terraces for drinks on sunny days and long, languid summer Sunday barbecues. And I guess if Soho House were to come a-calling, they’d be cheerily rebuffed over a glass of fizz, Cornwall’s Camel Valley Brut, probably: local, elegant and charming, with a dash of European sophistication. Yep, that sounds about right. C

Hotel Tresanton, 27 Lower Castle Rd, St Mawes, Truro, Cornwall TR2 5DR, United Kingdom
01326 270055; hoteltresanton.com