In ‘a wonderful cliff-top location’, this ‘large white edifice above Chesil Beach’ is run as a restaurant-with-rooms by Mary-Lou Sturridge and Tony Mackintosh, late of London’s Groucho Club. The vibe is carefree, the style drawing inspiration from Edwardian seaside hotels, with a dash of Edward Hopper’s Cape Cod. Furniture from the 1920s and 1980s, ornamental flotsam and jetsam, nautical paintings, Peter Blake prints and bare floorboards set the tone in bar and restaurant, with a row of French doors opening on to the terrace. Bedrooms, all with some view of the sea, ranked ‘double’, ‘larger’ and ‘largest’, are ‘nicely kitted out’. ‘elegant and unfussy’, with Roberts radio, books, shower or claw-footed bath. Breakfast brings freshly squeezed OJ, kipper, eggs Benedict. You can eat in or alfresco, for dinner maybe half-lobster, chips and salad; rump of lamb, haricot bean and tomato stew. Of course, sunshine is not guaranteed. A reader who came by in a ‘ferocious gale’, if not blown away by ‘a certain seaside charm’, was happy with ‘good’ fishcakes for lunch. ‘We are tempted to visit properly,’ he wrote, adding that he felt it ‘could be boisterous’. (John Barnes, MA)