The Scottish island that packs a tasting menu punch!!
The Isle of Skye, renowned for its incredible landscapes, magnificent mountains, walking/hiking and whisky, but did you know that this small island on the edge of Scotland is also becoming increasingly popular as a food lover’s destination, with multi-award-winning chefs producing outstanding food with hyper-local ingredients.
Not everyone plans a holiday around a tasting menu, but if finding new, exciting food is a high priority for your vacation, then this Hebridean gem should be high up on your bucket list. It might have a population smaller than a single London postcode, but Skye has a restaurant scene that rivals many small cities, and considering its size, an impressive array of accolades, with three of its chefs having represented Scotland on the BBC’s Great British Menu.
Serving local produce is something that is practiced in many restaurants around the UK, indeed globally, as people begin to realise the benefits of supporting local producers (and the environment) but on Skye it truly is hyper-local eating.
Seafood is brought off boats that land within sight of the dining room, mussels are grown on ropes along the shores of its pristine waters, while deer, cows, sheep and pigs graze the same hills that diners drive past to reach their chosen dining room.
The village of Dunvegan in the north west of Skye, is home to ‘The Dunvegan’, a small hotel owned by Blair and Tim Hunter Davies, where Tim and his son Ru, cook everything over open-fire. As well as showcasing local seafood and meat, the menu highlights their own vegetables, herbs and edible flowers, lovingly grown by Blair on their croft (smallholding). Skye crab doughnut, bread with churned seaweed butter, rope-grown Skye mussels and Skye black pudding all feature on the menu alongside other delicious dishes.
Seasonality is key to these Skye chefs, many of whom can be found out and about in their own gardens or nearby woodland and coastal areas, foraging for ingredients for their tasting menus.
Over in the island’s capital, the small town of Portree, Calum Munro, owner of Scorrybreac restaurant, perched high above the harbour, offers a creative menu of locally raised pork, hogget and seafood, alongside plenty of foraged additions. He posts almost daily on his Instagram showing what he and his kitchen team have foraged that day and how it will be used in the kitchen. Meadowsweet, wood sorrel, bog myrtle, pinecones, seaweed, wild garlic and more – all creatively utilised not just in the food but often in the accompanying drinks too.
Multi-award-winning Calum Montgomery, chef patron of Edinbane Lodge, a Michelin-recognised restaurant with rooms holding four AA Rosettes, sources much of his produce from relations and friends who fish or rear the meat on their crofts.
The grounds of the restaurant also feature a huge polytunnel where vegetables, fruit and herbs are grown and the nearby wooded riverside provides many of the other ingredients featured on the outstanding tasting menu, A Taste of Skye.
Locally grown oysters and scallops sit side by side with cod, lobster, and Highland Wagyu, but his Taste of Skye menu starts with an array of inventive canapés: seaweed and scallop roe with oyster emulsion, langoustine with blue mussel and caviar, venison tartare with hash brown, black pudding with alliums and brie-oche. On the reverse of each menu is a map of suppliers so diners can see exactly how few miles, or even metres, their ingredients were sourced from.
The Three Chimneys, perhaps Skye’s most famous restaurant (and one of the first restaurants on Skye to champion local produce under the ownership of Shirley Spear who opened it 41 years ago) also has a tasting menu, with the kitchen headed by Paul Green, who previously worked at the Chimneys some years ago under Lochbay’s Michael Smith, during his tenure there. He’s now back as head chef with a menu featururing langoustines from nearby Dunvegan and Sconser scallop, alongside hake and duck.
All of these chefs have built strong relationships with the fishermen and farmers nearby to their restaurants, working together to provide diners with a real taste of the local Skye larder. They make the case that Skye is not a just scenic backdrop with restaurants attached, but a genuine food destination – one where the drive between meals is half the reason to book the trip.
As well as those top tasting menus there are many other fantastic places to enjoy local produce on Skye but unfortunately, too many to mention that will be in a follow up article. Some highlights for the meantime include: Coruisk House, Elgol; The Ferry Inn, Uig; Kinloch Lodge, Sleat; The Old Inn, Carbost and the Stein Inn, Waternish.
Café culture is also strong here. Café Cuil in Carbost is possibly the most famous café on Skye with a seasonally changing brunch menu while Birch coffee shop in nearby Portree, was this year included in the Top 50 coffee shops in Europe and Top 100 in the world.
In the village of Struan, near Dunvegan, is Bog Myrtle Café, a stunningly decorated café/bookshop and at the south end, situated a few miles after you cross the Skye bridge is Lean To Coffee – a container coffee shop on the family croft, another very popular spot and perfect to grab a coffee and pastry while you drive around the island.
Now, get that visit scheduled! Your tummy won’t regret it!
