Hotel Du Vin Brighton

Update Review – a Much Better Experience than Last time.

The Sunday Brunch Menu is Fantastic Value – and Very Enjoyable – at 4 courses for £22.95 – one of which is an all you can eat buffet including Oysters, Smoked Salmon, Crab and really good quality charcuterie.

Great Service, Attentive, Friendly and Helpful Staff. Very good food and a really enjoyable experience.

Very helpful and excellent Sommelier.

I highly recommend this if you would like to have a special lunch – but you will need to book.

Review of Hotel Du Vin Brighton from 16 March 2011

Original Star Rating: 2

I wanted to take a visiting US colleague somewhere nice for lunch and was recommended to try the brasserie at Hotel du Vin by friends who had stayed there often – the menu seemed attractive and the telephone booking was handled very professionally.

Our greeting was warm and friendly – and the room nicely decorated and appointed – but the service needed a touch more focus to be considered attentive – especially as we were only the second table to arrive and there were at least 4 waiting staff on hand. It soon filled up.

My first course, a classic french chicken liver salad lacked finesse and did not boast the finest ingredients – it was disappointing.

My main – a simple steak with hand cut chips was branded from a known organic meat supplier and was cooked as requested but with very little seasoning and flavour that didn’t match the price tag. The hand cut chips were ok – but not delicious, the Bearnaise sauce was nice.

Having to request the bill 3 times from different waiters again showed a lack of attention to service.

In all, a lovely opulent, high quality room and ambience – but sadly let down by the quality of food and what seemed to be inadequately trained and not very engaged waiting staff.

At £90 for lunch for 2 without wine I feel it should have delivered more and would be unlikely to return in a hurry.

Visited on 17 November for Afternoon Tea with Fizz. Staff were OK. However, we were sat on a sofa(!) for afternoon tea. Sandwiches were dry and crusty, tea was served 15 minutes after cakes came out, scones were dry and burnt! There are SO many better places for a afternoon tea at £25! Will not be going again!

Quite a magical atmosphere in the evenings, low lighting and busy. Friendly and high end feel without being obnoxious or too stuffy. 

Brijesh Kotecha After staying in a couple of other hotels in the same Exit 7 location, I checked into the Marriot and was very surprised--the single room was spacious, quiet and extremely comfortable--quite unlike any other place in the area. Even the in-room coffee was good. From my bed I had a beautiful view of the hills and the sunset; the next two nights, however, I was moved to a double, queen bed room on the interstate side and found the view to be not so pleasant and the traffic noise disturbed my sleep. All in all, I found the guest laundry room to be very convenient, the pool clean and refreshing and the staff very pleasant. Brijesh Kotecha

Just had afternoon tea here, and very impressed! Pleasant service, relaxed atmosphere and a very good and tasty range of sandwiches and cakes means we'll definitely be going back!

Always feel special when we come here. It's not cheap but we don't come here for a cheap meal, we come here for a good meal. Espresso Martini is a favourite, when I come with the girls a friend always has one instead of dessert!

Lovely ambience and good food. Can be a little too pricey though. Service is good, but can occasionally be a little snotty.

I've eaten here a few times on the 2 dine for £30 deal turning it from somewhere pretty expensive into somewhere very cheap. The food isn't quite as good as from the main menu but it is still very good. The only let down is they seem to give you deliberatey crap coffee to make you feel bad for going for the free stuff. It's always very cold and very weak. Other than that this place is nice, even if you just want to go in a have a couple of glasses of wine in the lounge. They give you free olives and everything!

The Hotel du Vin chains, as mentioned in my review of the Birmingham one, are an absolutely ingenuous chain of buildings with a certain charming patina, restored, and turned into gorgeous hotels with unique features.

The Hotel du Vin in Brighton is a prime and divine example of the dedication that the owners take in finding the perfect building in keeping with the area's charm. The sea green hotel, set just back from the sea front, is full of Brightonesque quirky fun and a comfortable old British seaside feel.

Each of the rooms are individually decorated and furnished, and none of them are like the others. The decor of the place is perfectly done, from the old drift wood reception desk, to the long, wide winding staircase.

The bar is really something special, with gorgeous dark wood almost in a Latin American style, with dark brown leather furnishings and plenty of potted foliage.

As with most Hotel du Vin bars, the staff are impeccably friendly, and always know how to mix a stiff cocktail with no fuss. If you're a beer drinker, there are a few beers on tap, but this is no ale house.

Obviously, the specials at a "Wine Hotel" are going to be wines, and they have a gloriously large selection of plummy reds and crisp whites. With several Sommeliers on staff, finding the perfect wine for an early evening treat or to accompany a meal is easy going and fun.

The staff at the Hotel du Vin in Brighton are very friendly, and always helpful and polite.

It's a bit on the higher end for cost, but if you can afford to stay in Brighton in high summer, you won't be too shocked at the prices.

The honeymoon suite is absolutely to die for. The California King-sized bed is the most comfortable I've ever slept in, and the decor is very minimal but spot on (think New England rustic, Martha's Vineyard).

The wet room in the bathroom is very spacious -- five people could shower at a time, but hopefully on your honeymoon, you'll just want your better half in that scenario.

There are two large, porcelain claw-footed tubs, side by side, with room to store the champagne that comes complimentary with the room. With large, soft fluffy towels and 8 large windows, you could do worse than the Honeymoon Suite.

The hotel is a genuinely older building, and though the heating and a/c are in tip top shape, the windows do let in quite a bit of noise, so bring ear plugs if your room is facing the street. Brighton youths are just as noisy as anywhere else!

The Hotel du Vin on Ship Street has teamed up with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society to offer an extensive range of the Society’s single-cask malts. The initiative is aimed at the serious whisky connoisseur: the idea is to recruit new members, and offer benefits to existing members such as regular Society events, special dram prices and good deals on the plush ‘Society Suite’ at the hotel.

I went along to the launch in the new ‘whisky snug’ last night and can report that the single cask malts on offer are on a different planet to the run-of-the mill stuff in your supermarket. The alcohol content is 50 per cent making single-cask malt a bit like eyes – one may not be enough but three will make you look peculiar.

John McShane, the society’s ambassador, quoted David Daiches, the Scottish literary historian, critic and writer: "The proper drinking of Scotch whisky is more than indulgence: it is a toast to civilization, a tribute to the continuity of culture, a manifesto of man's determination to use the resources of nature to refresh mind and body and enjoy to the full the senses with which he has been endowed."

He also quoted WC Fields: “Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake.”

Sound advice.

Great atmosphere and good food but not cheap.

This place is getting VERY complacent! (I have been a number of times in the past and it is now on the downside of “downhill”

The service on Friday in the lounge bar was dreadful and the place was only half full, so no excuses and prices in the bar are becoming a joke with nearly £8:00 for a large G&T!

The restaurant was busy and the menu was VERY limited compared with previous visits - probably because of the numerous offers they have on during the week (not available on a Friday night or Sunday lunch.) If you are ever seated in the room alongside the main restaurant, ask to be re-seated as this room has all the atmosphere of a morgue and because is out of sight, service becomes out of mind.

The food was mediocre but once again over-priced for what it was. Perhaps this place has had it’s time and has been unable to keep pace with the changing market.

Stay clear or make sure your credit card limit is increased before you set out.

This is definately one of those places where you will pay a slightly higher price than you may elsewhere, but you are going to leave feeling like it is most definately worth it.
After eating in the restaurant i could not say enough just how good i found the food, drink and staff to be.
All the food we ordered seemed to be good quality fresh ingredients that were cooked perfectly.
Th ewine list (like you may expect from the name!) can look daunting, but staff were always available and willing to suggest something for you - and not in a sales person manner, but in a genuine way after asking what you like / dont like about certain wines, and not just the most expensive!
I will definately be back when next in the area.

We did not stay in the hotel, but ate in the restaurant as it was recommended by friends for our special night out (anniversary).

The restaurant is fantastic (so too is the cocktail bar, for pre-dinner drinks)!

The food is divine and I could not fault it. The wine list is very extensive and a wine expert will come to your table to help you find a wine that will suite your taste buds.

I did not have a pudding, but ordered the cheese board instead. The selection of cheeses on offer were second to none and again a cheese expert was on hand to talk me through the different cheeses and advise me on which ones would be best for my pallet and the wine we were drinking.

The service was impeccable and I swiftly booked another meal there for my mother’s birthday.

This is a slightly pricey restaurant, but well worth it for that special evening out.

Lu xx

Friendly intimate hotel with delightful rooms. Great location, just off the Brighton sea front and near the The Lanes shopping area. Good restaurant and, of course, great wine!

Tucked away but oozing style even by their own standards.
Great bar just for drinks, Restaurant is good and competent, with efficient staff. Best to book, very popular at weekends and sunday lunch. Higher end of pricing.