Scribblings from a stay at The Moorings
by Richard Mellor
This is a first. During 15 years in travel journalism, I’ve visited hundreds of hotels where locals have appeared at dinner. I’ve often shared hotel bars with locals, shared hotel spas with locals. But I can’t ever recall, as seemingly happens every day at Maddie’s in The Moorings, locals, most of them solo, popping in for breakfast.
As I try (and fail) to eat a superlative pain au raisin slowly – all the yummy pastries hail from Brittany and are powered by Breton butter, co-owner Matthew explains – I ponder exactly why the presence of locals is such a positive. For owners, it’s obvious: extra business, business which ought to endure during the off-season. But for guests like me? Ultimately, I conclude, it acts as confirmation: I’m very likely to have breakfast/dinner/a massage here because of my guest status; unlike me, a local has to actively choose to come, and will only do so if they or their friends seriously rate the place. Ergo: it really must be good.
Happily, locals are a constant at The Moorings. They cannily come early to snaffle unreservable outside seats on balmy days, facing all the bright boats gridding Gorey Harbour. They clink cocktails and laugh loudly over Venetian-style pizzas made from Matthew’s sourdough starter in the casual Maddie’s. And they pour in – romancing couples; groups of giggling friends swapping news – to The Dining Room, the slightly more formal, à la carte bistro option, while I relish a pan-fried hake in sweet-potato puree. The gregarious waiters know some by name from prior visits. “Shall we order that riesling again?” one lady asks her chums to my left. They gladly do.
Professional travel journalist? You’d never know it. My arrival at The Moorings sees me in a total, blundering panic; somehow, I’ve contrived to leave my holdall on the BA plane. Matthew is immediately heroic: he finds the right person for me to call, calls them and leaves me to it. As handlers at Jersey Airport hurry to the plane in a bid to rescue my razors, tablets, togs and toothpaste, he plies me with a complimentary coffee and listens patiently, counsellor-style, as I oscillate between laughter and fretting.
When my luggage fails to materialise, mystifyingly – Jersey just doesn’t seem like a bag-theft-kinda place – Matthew accompanies me into the adjacent clothing boutique in search of substitute clobber. He offers to run me into St Helier for emergency underwear. He lends me his Ralph Lauren puffer jacket and Timberland boots for tomorrow’s possibly wet walk. He even nips out and buys me a can of antiperspirant, although this last act may also be self-interested given my need for a shower.
Iselin is equally amazing, equally keen to help. Nothing ever moves me so much as kindness in its purest, least-mandatory form. The generosity and goodness of relative strangers. Yes, Matthew and Iselin are my hosts and yes, it’s in their interest to be nice to the writer doing a piece for Mr & Mrs Smith. But this is above and beyond. In fact, it’s above and beyond above and beyond.
My holdall eventually materialises in a broom cupboard in the depths of Gatwick’s South Terminal a fortnight later. It was still on the plane; somehow, worryingly, BA’s air stewards failed to notice an unclaimed bag in the overhead lockers as they paused in Jersey, meaning that it had the misfortune of entering Gatwick’s vortex-like lost-property system upon discovery there on the subsequent flight. Serves me right.
The tide hypnotises me. My second-floor, Harbour view double room, number 16, has a prime view over Gorey Harbour, which is protected by a slender seawall. When I have a weather-checking peek outside on my first morning, the tide is emphatically out. Most boats have been beached and a smattering of early risers are letting delighted dogs loose on the exposed tranche of yellow foreshore, speckled with anchor ropes and shells.
One shower and shave later, I sit window-side and look again, now nursing a cobweb-clearing coffee from my espresso machine. Suddenly, there’s only a paltry triangle of sand; most of those yachts and blue-splashed skiffs are bobbing again. And I know, I know, the tide moves quickly, son, don’t underestimate the tide, etc., etc., but still. Wow. By the time I return after breakfast, 45 minutes later, all the shore is well underwater and perhaps I imagined it all.
Matthew and Iselin’s help isn’t limited to emergency boots and cans of Sure Men Invisible Ice. They’re also a font of excellent, insider island tips – of the precious kind rarely available via Google, Claude, Lonely Planet or even, alas, Mr & Mrs Smith.
Three prove particularly sage. On the far side of Jersey, standing sentinel in a rebooted Second World War bunker on rocks atop St Ouen’s enormous bay, is Faulkner Fisheries. On sunny summer days, Iselin told me, they host seafood barbecues here. It’s drizzly when I visit, sadly, so I’m limited to freshly made sandwiches pairing just-caught crab with a special, lemony sauce. They’re still incredible – zingy and deep-flavoured in a gloriously simple way. Equally pleasing is the accompanying view; a world of dunes and sand and waves, stretching towards La Corbière’s silhouetted lighthouse.
Further up the east coast from Gorey is Driftwood, a smart but friendly cafe plumly positioned right beside Archirondel’s old defensive tower, whose dinkiness and red-and-white stripes give off Teletubby vibes, and then St Catherine’s Breakwater, with its edge-of-the-world vibe, ice-cream van and sea-facing Sauna Society cabin. I have the latter to myself, watching a brave fisherman hook mullet from slippery rocks ahead as I swelter between the blessed relief of cold showers.
When you can tell you really like your home is when you’re looking forward to returning, even after a great day out or trip away. That can be true of hotels too, and it’s the case with The Moorings. I have some wondrous experiences on Jersey, from lying on the Minquiers’ vanishing sandbars under electric-blue skies to following an empty, southwesterly chunk of the new Tidal Trail, and yet I’m always delighted to come back. It’s a hotel, but, cliché be damned, it feels like a home.
How, exactly? I can’t walk around in my socks – not beyond room 16, at least – or rummage in the kitchen for Hobnobs. It’s more in the sense of feeling comfortable. Of people knowing my name, of not feeling like anyone is faking it, of my hosts being happy to help but never remotely overbearing or obsequious.
All of that could also describe a number of excellent B&Bs around the UK; where The Moorings stands out is in creating the same atmosphere alongside proper style, amazing attention to detail and expanded offerings — two dining options; a bar; a treatment room; a yoga and Pilates studio.
I sincerely hope to return – perhaps even with my luggage in tow.