Once a month a string quartet serenades afternoon tea at this Victorian seafront hotel nicknamed ‘The White Palace’. Grand it may be, but stuffy it isn’t – and it is ‘obviously popular with families’. Trusted Guide readers’ Master Suite this year had ‘super sea views’, a ‘spacious’ sitting room with sofa, armchairs, a breakfast table by the window. Despite some ‘shortcomings’ (a ‘puny’ shower, lack of storage in a second, single bedroom), ‘we really liked it’. Shoes left outside were returned, ‘beautifully polished, in a shoe bag’. ‘Freshly made, delicious sandwiches’, delivered by room service, justified the 30-minute wait. Extras included fresh fruit, shortbread, a small decanter of sherry. At dinner in the refurbished Mirabelle restaurant, new chef Stephanie Malvoisin’s fine-dining menus include such dishes as halibut fillet, sweet potato crisp, apple and carrot cider cream sauce; for veggies, maybe aubergine cheesecake. In the Garden restaurant the style is slightly simpler, perhaps braised blade of beef, creamed potato, root vegetable medley, French beans, onion gravy. Breakfast choices include a full English, full Mediterranean (chorizo, pancetta), grilled kippers, oak-smoked haddock. (Michael Gwinnell, VRS)