Two Nights at Chapel House

I spent the first weekend of October in Penzance as a guest at Chapel House, a Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse on one of the town's oldest streets. The weekend previewed the three-day Fermentation & Wellness Retreat the house is hosting with The Fermentary (Newlyn) in March 2027, and it followed the same shape: swimming in the sea, eating very well, and learning how a handful of everyday ferments are made. This is the first of a six-part series on what we did, where we ate and why I’d go back.

Into the Sea

We swam before breakfast. The first morning we went in off Battery Rocks below the promenade, with the town still half asleep across the bay and a dryrobe (pink of course!) waiting on the steps. October water is colder than it looks and kinder than you expect, and getting in was easier than getting out. The second swim, though I didn't go in this time, was further west, in a tidal pool tucked among the boulders of a small cove (Priest's Cove), with fishing boats pulled up on the slipway and the sun burning through a mackerel sky. We sat on the rocks afterwards with flasks of Sue's soup, beetroot bread and truffle cheese, nobody in a hurry to put their shoes back on.

Favorita, Newlyn

On Friday night we walked along to Newlyn for dinner at Favorita, owned by Henry and Laura, which opened this year. It's a small room behind lace café curtains, with yellow tables, wood panelling, framed photographs and a menu printed fresh each day. We started with gildas, the Basque pintxo of olive, anchovy and pickled guindilla on a pin, then pickled sardines with chard and pine nuts, fava bean purée with samphire and pickled kumquat, flatbread straight from the pan, and figs with dukkah and Ele cheese. It felt like a neighbourhood place that has been around for years.

Room 4

This was my sixth stay at Chapel House this year and certainly won't be my last. Chapel House is on the 50 Best Boutique Hotels list, but it feels more like a private home than a hotel: art-filled rooms, walled gardens, a hot tub, a sauna, and a charming team of staff. I stayed in Room 4 both nights; it was one of the remaining rooms I hadn't stayed in yet. It sits high in the house under a skylight: a low oak platform bed against a turquoise glass headboard, a glass-walled shower behind it, and an arched window looking over slate rooftops and the garden to the sea.

Both nights I slept like a baby (with the help of Apothecary 27 Magnesium and Micheline Arcier's 'sommeil' sleep drops), and both mornings I woke early and sat by the window before the swim. The Fermentary’s new programme was waiting on the bedside table.

At the Table

Breakfast at Chapel House is reason enough to book. It's served at a long wooden table in the kitchen, on speckled stoneware with striped linen napkins, complete with silver napkin rings, little jars of Chapel House homemade jams and dahlias in blue glass bottles. Nobody rushes you, so we didn’t rush and took our time over choosing what to have. I chose the Vegan breakfast (partly because the rostis are so delicious). On Saturday evening we came back to the same table for supper cooked by Sue: fish under a crust of dill, spiced rice with lentils and crisp onions, a slow tomato and aubergine stew, and a slice of dark baked Basque cheesecake with raspberries and cream to finish.

Rachel & The Fermentary

Rachel runs The Fermentary in Newlyn, and on Saturday morning she set up in the kitchen to show us what she makes. First came water kefir lemonade, bright and barely sweet, with knobs of fresh ginger on the board beside the bottles. Then tepache, a Mexican ferment made from pineapple, bottled a couple of days earlier and fizzing hard when she cracked the cap. She poured it into etched coupes and talked us through how little you need to start: a jar, some fruit, sugar and patience.

I came home with a brown paper bag with Kefir water and a list of things to try - Archie Brown's in Penzance sells her product, so I nipped in there on Saturday to buy some.

Next March

Everything above was a preview. From 19 to 21 March 2027, Rachel and the Fermentary team return to Chapel House with River Cottage’s Rachel de Thample for a three-day fermentation and wellbeing retreat. The team will be on hand for the full stay, delivering two bespoke learning experiences and preparing seven mindful, ferment-inspired meals. You’ll learn to make sauerkraut, kimchi, water kefir, kombucha and kvass, and how to work them into everyday cooking, with sunrise swims, saunas and wild walks in between.

I stayed at Chapel House as a guest during a hosted press weekend.