Step House Hotel

Few villages the size of Borris are blessed with so good a hotel. The step house is family owned and run with an eye on elegance and quality. The annual dinner of a small sports club brought me there. Lovely function room, attentive staff, good quality drink and gorgeous food immaculately prepared and served. Delicious soup and breads, hake in a bed of tomatoes, perfect veg and to-die-for mash potatoes. An absolutely delicious dessert. Wines were very reasonable and good. They just know how to do simple elegant quality. Wonderful.

We recently held our wedding in The Stephouse Hotel, and I cannot begin to express how highly I would recommend this hotel. From our initial contact with Rebecca and our menu tasting with Benny, we received outstanding service and excellent communication throughout the planning process. The food was gorgeous, and all our guests commented on how good it was, along with the service and venue itself. The owners and staff really cared about how well our day went and that shone through with their engagement with us beforehand,on the day and even the day after. I do have to specifically call out Rebecca and Benny who went above and beyond to ensure the day was stress free and the rest of the team. Would definitely recommend the stephouse to anyone no matter the event!

I am still trying to work out why this supposed to be a boutique hotel as I have seen, ironically, more individual touch in design in decent chain places. In fact, the room I got I would characterise more as social climber boudoir circa 2009-10 than period. I suppose this moniker means people will pay more, but I don't think it is worth the money they charge. One of the chairs in the room had a brown stain on it, which I hope was make up and not something else. The water supply was unreliable with the shower either going repeatedly from totally hot to cold and back again, with a period of no water in between. If design detail is important, then I'd have added a towel rail near the shower as well as near the bath so that guests don't have to make the floor so wet just to get dry. I'd also give guests some shower gel and not multiple vials of shampoo and conditioner. How many heads would two guests in a room have? The food in the bar was ok, but not really worth the elevated price. Whereas most of the hotel staff were helpful and cheerful, I found some of the waiting staff to be quite cold and perhaps even snooty. Breakfast was fine but I am not sure why they play music, and quite mournful tunes at that, to drown out conversation. It does not add to the atmosphere at all.