These restaurants provide exalted dining experiences with settings that are often second to none – counteracting stereotypes of Scottish cuisine being dominated by deep-fried Mars Bars and tasteless turnips. Whether you live in Scotland, are visiting for a weekend or a week, we'll be delighted to make sure you get to sample the best. Call us to discuss getting the perfect table at one of these restaurants – or anywhere else you fancy dining north of the border.
Number One
The Balmoral Hotel, 1 Princes Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2EQ
Everything they serve up in the warm basement room at Number One is stylish, delicious and delightful. Chef Jeff Bland will often mix unexpected ingredients (such as pungent Livarot cheese, grapes and truffles) with astonishing results, but he also sticks to the basics of fine, fresh and preferably local ingredients. Just reading the menu is enough to set your mouth watering: duck with a plum and beetroot compote, Parmentier potatoes and chicory; fillet of Borders beef, oxtail ravioli, squash purée and braised leeks; chocolate Chiboust, blood oranges and Manjari chocolate sorbet. And while Scottish meat and fish may be a speciality, there's even good news for vegetarians: give enough notice and the kitchen can provide a meat and fish-free tasting menu that many have described as the best in Edinburgh.
Guide price: £60
The Summer Isles
Achiltibuie, Ullapool, IV26 2YG
Achiltibuie is a mighty five-hour drive from Edinburgh, but you won't regret making the journey to the northwest Scottish coast: the trip would be worth it for the view, even if the food wasn't magnificent. The local walking – around lochs, up mountains and along the rugged coastline – is second to none, and will work up sufficient appetite for chef Chris Firth-Bernard's astonishing seafood. Making the most of the day's catch (including some of the finest lobster, scallops and prawns you'll ever taste), he serves up a five-course set meal at 8pm prompt in the hotel's candlelit dining room. The setting, the freshness of the local produce and the consummate skill with which they are served ensure that this is a unique and memorable experience. And that's before you get to the legendary cheeseboard and the heavily-laden dessert trolley.
Guide price: £30
Closed in winter.
Inverlochy Castle
Torlundy, Fort William, PH33 6SN
This is decadence at its most refined. There are three dining rooms (all decorated with elaborate furniture presented to the castle by a Norwegian king), where chef Matthew Gray serves up astonishing combinations of truffles, black puddings, veal sweetbreads, pheasants and foie gras. On paper it sounds quite heavy, but on the plate – thanks to the chef's remarkably light touch – it's delicate and complex. Dinner is a splendidly formal occasion: before your meal, explore – while it may not be the original Inverlochy Castle (that's a ruin two miles away), this splendid Victorian pile has plenty of the other prerequisites: turrets, great high walls, battlements and a seemingly endless number of dining rooms. It's a country house hotel in the most opulent classic style.
Guide price: £65 for a four-course dinner
The Albannach
The Albannach Hotel, Baddidarroch, Lochinver, Sutherland, IV27 4LP
Just about every Michelin-starred restaurant makes a great point of trumpeting how local its food supplies are, but few can rival the legitimate claims made by The Albannach, a ‘restaurant with rooms'. The shellfish comes – or as they say, is ‘dived for by friends' – from down the road in Ullapool and Lochinver. Local crofters supply them with eggs. The beef and lamb is sourced direct from a free-range farm. Nearly all the game they serve up is wild and seasonal. Even the pottery is made by a neighbour. That's not to say, however, that The Albannach is inward-looking: the wine list features some of the best vintages from around the world, while the food is of international standard. The menu is sheer poetry: roast saddle of wild venison on braised red cabbage, with truffled carrot and parsnip puree, tarragon mash and port game sauce; seared, hand-dived Lochinver scallops and roasted monkfish tails on saffron and seaweed rice, wild mushroom-stuffed tomato, garlic greens and vermouth sabayon; hot chocolate soufflé with vanilla ice-cream, and plums poached in sauternes.
Guide price: £50
Knockinaam Lodge
Portpatrick, Dumfries and Galloway, DG9 9AD
Built in 1859, Knockinaam Lodge is a Victorian manor looking out over the Irish Sea, set in 30 acres of gardens and woodland which tumbles down to a sandy beach. The Lodge's remote beauty encouraged Winston Churchill to hold meetings here with General Eisenhower during the Second World War, while Hitchcock also made use of its striking setting in his classic film The 39 Steps. The food is the main draw now, however, with the wild garlic and herbs growing nearby adding a unique depth to classic combinations of truffle oil and quails eggs, pan-seared foie gras or grilled native salmon. Indeed, the cuisine is so good that it demands deep and involved postprandial reflection – which is where the wood-lined whisky bar and the hotel's legendary collection of single malts comes in very useful.
Guide price: £50
Connect with Ten Lifestyle