Location: Wester Ross IV54 8LR Northern Highlands

Web site: http://www.applecross.uk.com/inn/index.htm

Telephone number: 01520 744262

Date of visit: 10-12-09

Approx. cost per head: £15

Comments on wine list/beer: Great local ales, basic wines

Media link:

Review:
The Applecross is remote, accessed by either 15 miles of winding mountain track that is closed by snow December – March or by a coastal route which is only marginally less scary. Before you venture out there it’s probably best to decide if you would prefer death by drowning in an icy sea Loch or death by plummeting down a mountain side into a scenic but very cold Glen. Four wheel drive is essential, a blindfold for your passengers may be advisable; or earplugs to block out their screams as you ‘intentionally’ lose the back-end on yet another blind hairpin bend.

If you get there alive and still have an appetite you will find the Applecross Inn and one of the most friendly welcomes imaginable. It’s a small elongated pub looking out over the Loch towards the mountains of Skye on the horizon, check out the website; it really looks like that.

The Inn is a seafood pub, where anything that lives in the Loch outside and is edible can be ordered. 24 hours notice will secure you a lobster from a pot owned by the pub, they only need the notice so that someone can get up early and paddle out to the traps to pull one up. Applecross prawns are in fact langoustine and fine fat juicy ones at that; we had a few platefuls of those simply pan-fried with a little garlic butter with chips and fresh bread and it was one of the best meals out we had in the Highlands. There’s a wide variety of other fish, seafood and local game on the menu which changes according to what’s good, what’s in the net, or what got a bullet in the head the week before.

I drank a delicious local beer from Skye called Red Cuillin, and sure enough that’s the colour my eyes were the next morning, the new wife went for the Malbec off the short but adequate list and all in all we had a fantastic time sitting by the fire, watching the spectacular purple sunset and eating top quality fresh seafood. The Inn sees many visitors and is apparently rammed in the summer and autumn; it’s one of those places were the guest book says it all and we will certainly be going back to try the oysters and whatever else the Isle of Skye brewing company wants to throw at me.

Michael le Brocq