Hotel du Vin & Bistro, Royal Tunbridge Wells

...out for dinner at the Hotel Du Vin in our nearby town of Tunbridge Wells, but secretly booked us into a luxury double room upstairs too. Now seeing as Tunbridge Wells is only a few miles away, it was a tiny bit of a decadent gesture but hey, let's go mad once in a while.

I nearly managed to blow the whole surprise when in the bar for an aperitif I told him the glass of wine had already gone to my head! 'How are we going to drive home ...
...Every room at all the Hotel Du Vins are named after a wine supplier and decorated in the theme of the wine. Unfortunately there isn't a bottle of the actual wine in the room itself, but hey, you can't have everything. I'd booked a large double, and our bed was so enormous you could lie across it just as easily as up and down. There was a secret little fridge hidden away - with a half pint of fresh milk in there to go with your Cafetiere of fresh ... more

I like doing really daft spontaneous things. That's why I told my partner we were going out for dinner at the Hotel Du Vin in our nearby town of Tunbridge Wells, but secretly booked us into a luxury double room upstairs too. Now seeing as Tunbridge Wells is only a few miles away, it was a tiny bit of a decadent gesture but hey, let's go mad once in a while.

I nearly managed to blow the whole surprise when in the bar for an aperitif I told him the glass of wine had already gone to my head! 'How are we going to drive home then?' he said worriedly. He then preceded to spend the whole evening weighing up the options of trying to catch the last train home, or splashing out on a cab and collecting the car the next day. Knowing our bags were already upstairs from when I'd checked in that afternoon I smiled to myself.

Luckily the food was enough to distract my boyfriend from his travel worries for a while at least. While the rooms might be expensive (I'll put all the facts and figures at the end), the food I think is pretty reasonable - and not dissimilar to some gourmet pub menus these days - but my goodness - it is so much better.

I had scallops with rocket and Spanish sausage to start, every mouthful was heavenly, he had French fish soup - he said it was perfect. Then we both had steak - cooked rare, it melted in the mouth. There were perfect pommes frites and I ordered wilted spinach as a side dish. We gave the sommelier carte blanche to suggest something red and robust and he chose a not exorbitant bottle of red which tasted incredible. It could have been the ambience, the huge wine glasses or the company but I haven't enjoyed a bottle of wine as much since. It's worth having a look at the wine list, not only is it the length of a small novel, but it's amazing just how much money you can spend! But don't worry - there are plenty of reasonably priced bottles, lots of options to try wine by the glass, and we didn't feel any pressure to deviate from the cheaper end of the list.

We were pretty full by the time it came to desert, so a sorbet was all I could manage but there were no ordinary (boring) flavours to choose from here. On offer was fig, pineaple or apricot. I then ordered an espresso napoli which took the waitress by surprise as no-one had ever ordered it from her before. It was an espresso with a piece of lemon in it, and was rather strange. Mark's Irish coffee looked more appealing.

The bill came to £100. The wine had cost quite a bit of that - £30 - but don't get me started again on how lovely it was.

As we paid he was still fretting about train times, so I said 'we could try for the train, or call a cab.... or I suppose we could always just go upstairs'.

Every room at all the Hotel Du Vins are named after a wine supplier and decorated in the theme of the wine. Unfortunately there isn't a bottle of the actual wine in the room itself, but hey, you can't have everything. I'd booked a large double, and our bed was so enormous you could lie across it just as easily as up and down. There was a secret little fridge hidden away - with a half pint of fresh milk in there to go with your Cafetiere of fresh coffee. What a fantastic touch! If only all hotels would do that, and save you from the horror of long life milk. I'd put a half bottle of champagne in the fridge too (is there no end to my romantic gestures), so we drank champagne out of the flutes which of course happened to be provided in the room and watched a DVD late into the night.

Other nice little touches include a good selection of magazines in the room and bathroom toiletries with a little sign inviting you to take them home.

Ah yes, the bathroom - I have left the best till last. The biggest problem I had was deciding whether to have a long deep bubble bath in the freestanding roll top bath, or disappear into the most enormous walk in power shower I've ever seen. I ended up having to try both.

Not feeling the need to look around Tunbridge Wells in the morning (seeing as we live there), we lazed about all morning and left at 11am. No-one seemed in any hurry for us to leave, and I'm sure we could have asked for a later check out if we had wanted to.

It was a decadent stay - £150 for the room, £100 for the meal... but it was pretty unforgettable and of course it now means that the pressures on for him to do something equally spontaneous for me!

Now I've stopped waxing lyrical about the stay, here's some useful info:

The Hotel du Vin in Tunbridge Wells is a situated in a Grade II sandstone mansion. It has 34 individually decorated bedrooms. There are 7 hotels in the chain, in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Harrogate, Henley on Thames, Winchester and of course Tunbridge Wells.

The hotels food philosophy states they use the finest and freshest local produce, cooked simply and priced sensibly.
Starters range from £6-9
Mains from £12-17
Deserts are all priced at £6.75

Double rooms cost from £95 (but can be a bit small)
Big Doubles cost from £125
Suites from £200

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