Cornwall's Headland hotel opens £3m restaurant

The five-AA-star Headland hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, has invested £3m in a new restaurant as part of an ongoing refurbishment programme.

Restaurant RenMor – which means Restaurant by the Sea in Cornish – has replaced the Samphire as the clifftop hotel’s main dining venue.

It is open to hotel guests and non-residents and features an open kitchen and panoramic views over the Atlantic.

Head chef Fred Goodrich serves a menu of sharing plates, prime steak cooked on open coals and whole fresh fish sourced from local day boats.

Veryan Palmer, director at the Headland, said: “It has taken an incredible amount of vision, planning and execution to deliver a world-class restaurant and it is testament to everyone involved in the renovation that we can now welcome diners for a fantastic new experience.”

Goodrich added: “In RenMor I’m trying to create something which can stand up to the best restaurants in Cornwall, offering fantastic flavours in a calm, light and breezy setting.”

The Headland hotel dates from 1897 and has hosted guests including King Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and King Charles III. It was used as a location for the 1987 film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, which starred Angelica Houston and Rowan Atkinson.

Palmer, who began working at the Headland as a teenager, previously spoke to The Caterer about how the hotel runs a placement scheme for teenagers to give them a positive first experience in the hospitality industry.