Location: Torridon by Achnasheen IV22 2EY

Web site: www.thetorridon.com

Telephone number: 01445 791242

Date of visit: 8th December 2009

Approx. cost per head: £45

Comments on wine list/beer: Broad but shallow wine list, great whisky selection

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Review:
We were staying in Torridon for our honeymoon in a converted boathouse by the loch; we did much of our own cooking but ventured up to the Torridon hotel one evening to sample their offering.

The hotel is a converted Victorian shooting lodge, so visualise turrets, high timbered ceilings with ornate inlays, stags heads on the walls and massive fireplaces with roaring log fires. It looks the part, and the absence of Scottish accents amongst most of the staff doesn’t take away from the authentic ambience. We caught them during their last week before the hotel closes for the winter; I thoroughly enjoyed joking with the live-in manager about how Jack Nicholson went mad in the Shining under much the same circumstances. She thought I was hilarious.

Pre-dinner drinks and canapés were served in the drawing room by the fire with a huge (but sadly artificial) Christmas tree keeping us company, this was odd because the hotel is surrounded by 120,000 hectares of mixed fir forest; possibly some strange Scottish health and safety thing, what a shame, I hope the person who came up with that one slipped on the ice we’ve had recently.

A good range of Gins was on offer so I went for Hendricks which was served well and the canapés were tasty enough; the slice of local ham hock stood out.

We were then moved into the dining room for dinner. This room has the most spectacularly ornate ceiling which has been spoiled by some more recent and very poor quality interior design below it; we decided they have tried to blend the old and the new but not very successfully.

Service was smart and attentive; there were only 6 covers that night so they weren’t really pushed.
We opted for a 5 course set menu starting with a jerusalem artichoke veloute; very good and made us smile because we had been nattering to the gardener earlier in the day and artichokes were the only thing still coming out of the garden at that time of year. Most of the fruit and veg served at the hotel during the middle of the year is home grown.

Next up was hand dived scallops from the loch outside with cauliflower puree; these were amazing and even my other half who is uncertain about shellfish loved them. A rare treat down south, but these are everywhere in this part of Scotland (see my Applecross Inn review).

For our mains we had venison and halibut; both were perfectly cooked and full of flavour but badly let down by their accompaniments; the fish was swimming in a sickly creamy sauce which totally overwhelmed the dish, and the rosti served with the venison had become soggy throughout.

Two puddings followed, a lemon posset which was good and a jelly concoction which was less good.
During the meal we drank a bottle of Trinity Hill pinot noir; we had this as one of the wines at our wedding, so were being sentimental, but it’s always reliable and paired well with the venison, Oh, and with the halibut too, sort of, There was no sommelier present during our visit.

Feeling slightly underwhelmed we took coffee in the cosy drawing room and talked about how with a few tweaks this could be a great restaurant; it’s worth a visit for the stunning scenery and setting as well as the eccentricity of the building, and perhaps the full menu holds some (for us) undiscovered gems. The chef cooking for us was apparently a recent replacement for a long-standing predecessor, so is probably finding his feet still. The time of year and remote location may also have presented difficulties for sourcing ingredients; however our issues were all with things that could be corrected through greater effort, skill, and a good eye for design.

Post-script…
The hotel also owns the Torridon Inn, a pub in the grounds of the hotel. This serves great home-made burgers and would have had a selection of 4 real-ales were we not there on the day before it closed. Two days after we left the Highlands it began snowing, and it hasn’t really stopped since with avalanches reported in the Torridon range, so both of these places are best visited in the Spring or Autumn (midges in the summer) and a 4×4 or at least something with good ground clearance is recommended for the lanes in these parts.

Michael le Brocq

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

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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