Edinbane Lodge Review

Reopened in 2017 by TV-featured Chef Patron Calum Montgomery and his family, Edinbane Lodge on the Isle of Skye is a restaurant with an impressive and growing reputation. Boasting four AA rosettes, an Excellent rating in the Good Food Guide and even a place in the Hardens Top 100, our very site deems it the best restaurant in the UK not holding a Michelin star. I was therefore expectant of some high quality cooking, but also curious why that precious star hasn't yet been awarded here, as I rocked up for dinner with my wife on a cold and rainy August Wednesday.

The restaurant lives in an historic building and sits in a pleasant spot with a river running alongside, and there's a decent sized car park too which is always handy. We even caught glimpse of the restaurant's on-site polytunnels adjacent to the car park as we made our way inside. The welcome on arrival was very warm, and as we'd arrived a little bit early (around fifteen minutes) as suggested on the booking confirmation email, we first sat in the lounge area to enjoy a pre-dinner drink.

The lounge area is a very nice space and suitably comfortable; there's a good variety of drinks on offer including a solid cocktail list and a number of non-alcoholic options too. I had a Highland Bramble cocktail to start which was very pleasant, whilst my wife enjoyed an Unemenu kombucha; in line with the hyper local focus of the menu, this is a kombucha brand that's made on the Isle of Skye, and it's fair to say my wife was a fan.

We were then shown through to the dining room. This is another very pleasant space, albeit fairly compact, and already had a bustling atmosphere (plenty of tourists like us enjoying themselves) which continued throughout the evening. As we knew before booking, it's just a single tasting menu here which we were given a copy of, including a provenance guide highlighting the locally sourced emphasis behind so much of the food. In addition, there's a solid wine list but I (as I normally do) opted for the wine pairing. There's no non-alcoholic pairing on offer here, but my wife did enjoy another of the mocktail choices (a non-alcoholic mojito) later in the meal.

The wine flight actually started alongside the snack courses which is fairly unusual I would say, and the only time during the meal I felt slightly rushed; basically I still had most of my cocktail left when the first wine arrived. I guess at some point a guest has moaned about the wine flight starting after the snack courses, but it's normal to enjoy your aperitif with the snacks, and it's also impossible to really match a single wine with multiple different pre-dinner nibbles. In the end they've opted for the fairly predictable English sparkling wine option (Gusbourne), which is really the best I think you can do in that scenario.

The snacks began with some tasty seaweed and scallop roe crackers, but then ramped up with four high class nibbles. Langoustine served with caviar was lovely and fresh, but the venison tartare served atop little hash brows was delicious and probably the highlight of the snacks. Having said that, a delicate black pudding tart and an unctuous brie filled bread ball were both excellent too. It was a strong start to the meal for sure.

First of the main dishes was oysters, served in a rich deep broth with balls of Isle of Mull cheddar and mushrooms, with Chef Callum coming to the table to deliver part of the dish. This wasn't the most elegant dish to look at, but it packed a lot of flavour. Some nice slices of crusty bread with a couple of types of butter were served around the same time also, and we enjoyed this too.

The next dish was probably my favourite of the meal; a lovely juicy scallop served atop a sauce of dulse (seaweed) and cucumber. You could really taste how fresh the scallop was (one of the great things about eating seafood in Scotland) and there's no doubt this kitchen knows how to perfectly cook a scallop; it was a delicious dish.

The quality seafood cookery continued with a neatly constructed bowl consisting of a combination of perfectly seasoned cod and lobster on top of a carrot puree, with another really nice sauce. This was another high quality dish, with every element cooked faultlessly.

Despite the delicious seafood on show, it was great to see a red meat course next and that came in the form of some highland wagyu beef with black truffle. The main chunk of meat was again faultlessly cooked and well rested, and the accompanying elements including pomme dauphine and a little crispy potato case housing some braised beef shin, were all delicious; I really enjoyed this dish too.

We then moved into the (fairly short) sweet section of the meal, starting with a vibrant and fresh strawberry sorbet pre-dessert. The final course of the evening was the signature 'Falasgair' dessert; an almond sponge cake with burnt heather ice cream and various other elements. I enjoyed this but it didn't blow me away; I did find a little bit of sweetness right at the bottom of the bowl, but not quite as much as I was hoping for against the other elements. My wife did enjoy it more than me though.

We then retired back to the lounge to enjoy coffee accompanied by a couple of very nice chocolate dome petit fours, and I even snuck in a glass of Raasay Dun Cana whisky as well (recommended by the sommelier who I'll come on to) ahead of my visit to the Raasay distillery the following day; it was a very sound recommendation.

And with that, after collecting our bill (complete with 12.5% service charge), our hugely enjoyable dinner came to an end. There are so many positive things I can say about this restaurant that I'll inevitably forget something, but let's start with the food. The cooking was excellent throughout and the menu pacing was spot on. They stagger the bookings here but instead of trying to sync you with other later/earlier tables (something I always notice and hate to be honest), they kept the same solid pacing throughout the meal.

The wine flight was decent too, fairly safe I would say but I enjoyed all the wines and they were well delivered. I do normally prefer wines to be poured at the table, but I didn't find it an issue they weren't in this environment. The wines were well explained, we were shown all the bottles and I even cheekily managed to successfully request a little extra pour when I saw there was only a smidgen remaining in the bottle for our final dessert wine. I should add, there's the option to have whisky rather than wine with the final dessert too.

Coming back to the pacing, that is important here because slightly unusually I would say for this level of restaurant, they have two full restaurant sittings. The great skill with that though is to make sure the guests don't feel rushed and that's a test they passed with flying colours. Yes staff had to rearrange a table of four into two tables of two whilst we were mid-meal and it's difficult not to notice things like that happening (when you visit a lot of restaurants), but genuinely we were enjoying the meal so much that it didn't bother us at all.

Which brings me on to what I believe is one of the biggest assets here, and that's the staff. The service was absolutely phenomenal. I have to say kudos not only to the team but also to the ownership, as they've assembled a fantastic bunch of people who were all incredibly professional, pleasant and engaging during the meal. I must give a special mention to Craig, who serves not only as the barman, but also the sommelier and even (as he reminded me!) checks people in who are arriving to stay in the on-site rooms. He did an amazing job looking after us and as I told him when I shook his hand on departure, he's a real credit to the restaurant, despite his football allegiances (sorry Craig!).

When comparing to the very best UK restaurants, you could argue the experience might be better with a more relaxed single sitting, and things like a dedicated sommelier. But they'd probably have to charge £400 a head to make that work and I'm sure that just wouldn't be feasible here, so I genuinely believe they've got the structure of the offering exactly right.

There is one small bit of advice I would suggest for the restaurant though, and that's around the lack of a minimum age for children dining; they make clear on the website when booking there's no minimum age to eat here. The first thing I need to say is that I love taking our kids to top restaurants, and we've been fortunate enough to visit many of the best child friendly restaurants in the UK in recent years, including multiple 1* and 2* restaurants.

But, I definitely wouldn't bring our youngest here. Apart from the tasting menu only format, the room is quite small and it's really loud, such is the nature of tourists from afar (like us) making lots of noise. One table brought their young son, who could only have been around four or five years old, and of course he wasn't happy. The parents' solution was for the mum to shout at him in the toilets before the dad dragged him outside to sit in the car mid-meal; it was really, really uncomfortable.

Now look, that isn't at all the fault of the restaurant, but I do think they should implement a minimum age for dinner, even if it's at a still-very-liberal eight or ten years old, just to help parents who aren't capable of making the right decision themselves. I do appreciate there's a trade off there in terms of potentially not filling tables as easily though.

None of that took away from our overall experience however; we absolutely loved our visit here. The food was fantastic (unquestionably at 1* level) and the service was incredible; this is by far the best restaurant we've been to in Scotland and it is absolutely worthy of national recognition. I wish everyone involved huge success moving forwards, and I hope very much to be able to pay a return visit in future.