Perched on the cliffs surrounding Mawgan Porth beach, Scarlet is a modern, eco-friendly, adults-only luxury hotel offering Poldark views and Orange County-style coastal living.
Cool, contemporary and proudly Cornish, this beautiful hotel is the perfect place to relax and recharge, with a range of wellness activities to choose from and endless places to sit and soak up the panorama. In fact, you’ll be hard-pushed to find a window or seat in Scarlet that doesn’t offer coastal vistas. With an emphasis on light and space, the hotel combines glass, wood and stone to create a coastal haven that blends seamlessly into its beachside location.
Following an evening watching music at the Eden Project, my wife and I made the 30-minute drive from the south to the north of the county to enjoy a couple of nights’ respite at this eco-retreat.
Hotel
We arrived at the hotel just after midnight, squeezing our car into the car park at the rear of the main building. A number of electric car charging spaces were the first nod to the hotel’s fierce commitment to sustainability. From energy-saving hot tubs and a solar-heated spa to the circular plumbing system that reuses waste shower water to flush the loos, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to ensure guests can enjoy a luxury coastal break whilst leaving the smallest carbon footprint possible on this beautiful corner of the South West.
Step in through the entrance, and the reception opens up to a multi-tiered space that includes the bar, restaurant, and lounge area. All are glass-fronted and offer sensational views over wild gardens and out to the Atlantic. The hotel is adorned with art from celebrated Westcountry artists, including vibrant paintings by Yvonne Coomber and some impressive sculptures by Jilly Sutton.
Outside, the gardens are a wild haven, featuring a beautiful natural pool, wooden hot tubs, and a barrel sauna. Created using local and reclaimed materials and offering the most stunning Cornish views, this carefully curated landscape merges with the surrounding cliffs as subtly as the River Menalhy feeds the Celtic Sea below.
On arrival, we were promptly greeted and shown to our room, where a bottle of homemade elderflower cordial and some Cornish fudge awaited our arrival. Sure, it was 12.30am, but it would be rude not to try it.
Rooms and suites
The hotel offers 37 rooms, all with sea views and some outside space. First-floor rooms benefit from large balconies, perfect for coastal gazing and sunset photos. On the ground floor, rooms open up via bifold doors to furnished patios and the grounds beyond.
Finished in a timeless East Coast fashion, with full-length billowing linen curtains, a free-standing bath and a bed that faces straight out to sea, the rooms are simple, comfortable and considered. To support the hotel’s eco ethos, bedrooms are stripped back of certain luxury hotel staples, but we found this only accelerated our ability to relax and unwind. The TVs, for instance, are almost an afterthought, but ours was never switched on. There are no tea and coffee-making facilities, yet a call to reception and freshly made drinks arrive at your door in minutes (free of charge). Sockets away from the bedside ensure there’s no bedtime doom scrolling. Instead of air conditioning, the rooms are designed to be cooled by the breeze off the ocean, with doors that can be locked ajar; the sound of the waves will lull you to sleep. Calm and serene, it feels like the interiors are designed with the sole focus of channelling your attention back outside.
At the rear of the room was an open-plan bathroom hidden behind a chest-height partition. There’s a large bath, sink, and cosmetic area, while frosted glass hides a shower and toilet. In spaces as serene as these, the lack of complete privacy and quiet probably isn’t for everyone, and it depends on your preferences as to whether this adds to or diminishes your romantic experience!
Food and drink
Wining and dining at Scarlet takes place in the light and airy restaurant with its lofty ceiling, full-height glass windows, and large terrace. It is the perfect space to bookend each day and celebrate nature’s best gifts. From its coastal views to the fabulous local produce on the menu, the restaurant and its offerings ebb and flow with the tides and the seasons.
Alongside a Full Cornish breakfast and brown butter waffles, the morning menu includes some delicious, healthier choices designed to set you up for a day of self-care. We started with the cleansing juice of the day and some pink grapefruit before I tucked into smoked Cornish kipper with allium and citrus butter and charred sourdough toast. My wife enjoyed AFC mushrooms with natural yoghurt and spinach. Both are beautifully presented and bursting with flavour. The Cornish pace of life dictates there’s no need to rush off after you’ve finished eating, and the restaurant is the perfect place to sit with a coffee and make a plan for the day ahead.
Later, we ordered a light lunch of arancini, bread, and hummus from the All Day menu at the bar and enjoyed it in The Retreat (a peaceful space on the top floor with its own huge sun terrace, books, board games, and ocean-deep sofas).
At dinner, the hotel staff excelled in their knowledge and recommendations. The Spanish sommelier helped us pair surprisingly good Cornish wines with our menu choices, while the waitress excelled in her knowledge of various dishes. We thoroughly enjoyed starters of asparagus with wild garlic emulsion and charred hispi cabbage, but the highlight was the côte de boeuf with café de Paris butter, Ceasar salad, and skinny fries. The desserts included a honey parfait and an amazing hazelnut, chocolate, and salted caramel mille feuille.
To do
Scarlet is all about getting guests to unwind, and we found it to be the perfect place to do so. After breakfast, we left our room and ventured down through the grounds to pick up the South West Coast Path, which runs along the coastal perimeter of the hotel gardens. One of the UK’s leading attractions, this well-trodden trail is some 600 miles long. A stay at Scarlet puts you within striking distance of some of the path’s most scenic sections, with the iconic beach at Bedruthan less than an hour’s hike to the east.
Turning left out of the hotel and heading west soon brings you to the beach below the hotel, a large sandy cove that’s perfect for swimming. There’s a newsagent, surf shop, cafe, and pub in the village before the path takes you back up onto the headland, continues to Watergate Bay, and then on to Newquay.
Keen to make the most of the hotel and slightly drenched by some unexpected Cornish drizzle, we ticked a view of Watergate off our list before trudging back to our room.
Leaving the outside world at the gate, along with anyone under the age of 18, we headed to the hotel’s highly acclaimed eco spa to indulge in a day of restoration. Open to guests from 8am until 8pm, the Scarlet Spa is a complete sanctuary for the digitally drained among us.
First, there is the striking indoor pool, flooded with natural light and separated from the outdoor natural pool only by large glass-paned walls. Alongside the pool is a steam room, waterfall showers and a hanging cocoon, perfect for a gentle recovery after pool-based exertion. Next door is a large and serene relaxation room with sun loungers, floor cushions, more cocoons and loveseats, all positioned to soak up the views and Cornish sun.
Outside, the natural pool is cleansed by living reeds and plants. Perfect for a cold water plunge, we spotted newts in the reed beds and enjoyed the swallows swooping low over the water to snack on insects living in this beautiful habitat. If you’re not feeling brave enough, bask on a sun lounger, or head down the path to the outdoor cedar wood sauna, complete with porthole windows that overlook the beach. There’s also a pair of eco wooden hot tubs that can be hired by the half-hour.
Additional facilities include a meditation room, yoga studio, and another smaller relaxation space with hanging pods for daytime snoozing.
Scarlet Spa offers a wide range of treatments in underground tented treatment rooms, including massage, body and facial treatments and signature therapeutic journeys. Several of these are tailored towards reconnecting couples, with specialist treatments including shared hammam scrubs and copper bath bathing.
For our part, we enjoyed an indoor swim and steam room before setting up base in the relaxation room. There, we ordered some hot drinks, read books, and generally lazed around between intermittent plunges in the outdoor pool and some heat therapy in the sauna. Inside and out, the space holds a remarkably calm and sanguine atmosphere. We chatted with other guests while a few staff members came and went, refilling the hydration station and herbal teapots or fluffing up and replacing the odd discarded cushion. All in all, it was a wonderful place to slow down.
Throughout the week, there are morning tai chi, yoga and Pilates sessions to join. On the second morning, I made my way to the yoga studio for a yin yoga session with Jess, which was a great way to start the day. In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to enjoy some Cornish wine tasting, and later that night, we discovered the snug/games room, complete with a pool table, a good selection of books, and some board games.
We hit the spa again on the morning of departure, soaking up every last opportunity to unwind before heading back east.
In a nutshell
Whether you’re in danger of burnout, feeling disconnected or just generally very tired from the relentless pace of family life, Scarlet is an amazing sanctuary at which to recover. The adult-only element is perfect for couples looking to remember themselves, while the wild gardens, strong Cornish influence and superb wellness facilities are sure to help bring you back to earth.
It’s healthy and wholesome without woo-woo. The eco-friendly ethos is subtle. The food is amazing. The Scarlet is the kind of place that will allow your truest, simplest nature to rise back to the surface. I can’t wait to go back.
Factbox
Scarlet offers rooms from £265 per night.
Address: The Scarlet Hotel, Tredragon Road, Mawgan Porth, Cornwall, TR8 4DQ
Phone: +44 (0)1637 861 800
Email: stay@scarlethotel.co.uk
Website: scarlethotel.co.uk
Photography courtesy of Scarlet Hotel, Red Hotels
