Purpose-built ‘socially distanced’ restaurant unveiled by Cornish hotel

A hotel in Cornwall has unveiled what it calls the first purpose-built socially-distanced hotel restaurant.

The Anti-Social Club restaurant at the St Moritz Hotel & Spa is made up of 16 private dining rooms of four or eight covers, with 96 covers in total. All food and drink will be served through hatches so staff don’t have to enter the room and interact with diners.

All private dining rooms have outside access, while reservations will be staggered to minimise the chance of diners coming into contact with each other and to allow staff to clean each room between sittings.

The hotel says staff will be provided “clear guidance and exacting operating standards to ensure the two-metre rule and new environmental health requirements are met at all times”.

The restaurant is planned to open on 4 July and will require “at least 20 staff to run across the high season”.

Co-owner Hugh Ridgway said: “Our purposeful architecture allows us to trade our rooms in a safe and socially distanced manner, however we can only sell those hotel rooms if we can feed our guests – and feed them well. Simply reworking our current restaurants and bars, and operating at 30% capacity doesn’t allow that, so our specially-designed summer ‘pop-up’ restaurant overcomes this obstacle, adding to, rather than detracting from, our stylish, VIP guest experience.”

Hugh’s brother Steve Ridgway, until last week the chairman of VisitBritain and former chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, said: “Within VisitBritain we have been encouraging the industry to discover, and unlock, experimental opportunities that provide a silver lining among the Covid challenges.

"With the Anti-Social Club, and other changes to St Moritz Hotel & Spa, I am very much putting my money where my mouth is – and we’re all exceedingly pleased to have landed on a new concept and dining solution that elevates the summer experience there. Thousands of customers do not want to miss their summer holidays and this will mean that they won’t, and that they can holiday in a safe and enjoyable way.”