The Three Chimneys – Colbost Isle of Skye
The Three Chimneys is worth the two-hour trip from Inverness
– the nearest airport – for the location alone. Ringed by heather – covered
mountains and flanked by a glassy loch; it’s the kind of Caledonian idyll
Victorian artists used to risk worsening their consumption for. The
farmhouse-like dining room is as romantic as any Burns ode.
The Three Chimneys
– Colbost isle of skye
The food is phenomenal. Locally sourced dishes were the
restaurant’s USP long before any TV chef started talking about food miles. “Our
menus have always had to make the most of what’s around us,” chef Michael Smith
tells me. “It’s more economical for Glasgow suppliers to ship ingredients to New
York than to send them up here”
From top: the restaurant; room-service Champagne; cheese
selection
With this in mind, I opt for the Seven Courses of Skye
tasting menu, which begins with langoustines lifted from the loch I see ripping
beyond the window and ends with a marmalade soufflé infused with Drambuie
syrup. In between come Colbost crab risotto. Sconser scallops. Loch Harport
oysters and Lochalsh venison, each beautifully presented, innovative and
flavoursome. It’s surely only a matter of time before Smith’s cooking receives
the Michelin star it deserves.
Fine Cuisine at The
Three Chimneys, Isle of Skye
The six suites in the adjacent House Over-By are at the
functional end of the style spectrum, and homely in the sense that they feel
like the guest bedroom of a very fashionable, wealthy friend. Everything is
pleasant and comfortable without being too off-puttingly cool. The X-factor
here is provided by loch views through every window and, of course, the food.
Colbost, Dunvegan, Isle of Skye (01470 511258; www.threechimneys.co.uk). Doubles
from $450 B&B. Dinner about $180 for two without wine. Seven Courses of
Skye menu $130
21212 – Edinburgh
As a place to stay there can be no faulting 21212. Chef Paul
Kitching’s glamorous Edinburgh restaurant with rooms, situated in a Grade
I-listed townhouse on the Royal Terrace, wows you with style from the second
you open the front door. The high-ceilinged Georgian chambers on the ground
floor may have retained their original cornicing, windows and decorative
flourishes, but they have been complemented by a 21st-century design
theme of primary-coloured discs – seen everywhere from the plant pot beside the
entrance to the screen in front of the open kitchen. There are also
butterfly-print carpets and metallic wallpaper.
The four bedrooms are breathtaking. My enormous, top-floor
room combines serenity – white walls, garden views and skylights – with a
cutting-edge feel that comes from its statement bed (with a photograph of a
Scottish landscape, printed on a screen divided into blind-like slats, as a
backdrop). Renaissance art-print lampshade and mirrored walls.
One of the four
bedrooms
The food is equally glitzy. Kitching earned the restaurant a
Michelin star within months of opening, and his visually stunning cuisine is a
riot of flavours and textures. “Aye, we do throw the kitchen sink at it.”
Kitching tells me, “It’s an expression of my complex personally. And though at
its heart it’s classical French cookery. I’d like to think we’ve reinvented it
a bit. It’s the culinary equivalent of Salvador Dali – he started out as a
classical painter.
Smoked salmon with
“winter warming flavours”, including broken lemon-tart crust, at 21212
Everything on the five-course menu comes with a bewildering
list of ingredients (including – in the case of my beef main – sausage, bacon,
gammon, ham, haggis, chestnuts and cranberries), and each dish looks so good
you feel churlish eating it. But as the restaurant is filled with a trendy
local crowd, many of whom are clearly eager to impress their dates, the
panache-filled platefuls hit the spot perfectly.
3 Royal Terrance, Edinburgh (0845 22 21212; www.21212restaurant.co.uk). Doubles
from $265 B&B. Five-course dinner menu $105 per person
