Cool Place of the Day: The Idle Rocks, Cornwall

Every day, a new place to discover or explore from coolplaces.co.uk

We’ve always liked the St Mawes Hotel, with its fabulous location right in the heart of this pretty and rather fashionable Cornish fishing village, but we love its sister hotel, The Idle Rocks, just as much.

It's also housed in a beautiful Edwardian waterfront building in the centre of the village, and is a stylish, bright and contemporary place that has a touch of escapism and seaside romance about it. It was voted one of the best 50 beach hotels in Europe a couple of years ago – quite an accolade, given the competition. But once you get here you will see why: not only are the building and the location pretty much picture-postcard-perfect, but the stripped-down charm of the guest rooms and the unabashed comfort of the public areas make it the perfect place to spend the weekend doing, well, not very much at all.

Plus there's a restaurant which serves superb local produce in a deliberately non-starchy, laid-back and really rather Cornish environment, and which itself has also won various awards, not least for being one of the UK's top places to eat by the sea. We love St Mawes, Falmouth and the Roseland peninsula area in general, and The Idle Rocks is perhaps the best place from which to enjoy it.

Cool Places is a website from the creators of Rough Guides and Cool Camping, suggesting the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop in Britain (coolplaces.co.uk)