Kinloch Lodge

During the 1970s, Lady Claire Macdonald was responsible for transforming the ancient Macdonald family home on Skye into an iconic country house hotel. For years, it was renowned for its elevated take on Scottish home cooking, until Lady Claire recruited Marcello Tully – a chef with a Roux brothers’ pedigree. These days, the portrait-lined dining room is the setting for intricate, precision-crafted five-course dinners to go with an acclaimed wine list. You might start with a soupçon (small cup) of parsnip & Pernod soup, before shredded roast duck with black pudding, say; an ‘in-between’ course of scallops on black pudding mousse could lead on to local lamb fillet pair with all manner of trimmings, with warm, layered dark chocolate & orange pudding to finish. Lunch is a lighter prospect if you don’t want a full-on dinner. Tully has already picked up several awards, & is surely destined for even greater things.

Wine List Of The Year

With more than 20 wine flights, this place clearly takes its wine as seriously as its Michelin-starred food. Full tasting notes for every wine, whether in the ‘Standard’ or the ‘Fine and Interesting’ selection, make this a sizeable tome, but it’s nice to see English wine and Scottish fruit wines on a list alongside pricier classics.